What do you like/hate most about the play King Lear?

Question

Just curious...

Answer 1

It's just one of the most incredible, moving, exhausting, horrifying plays Shakespeare has ever written. You have Lear's descent into madness and his clinging to his fool for comfort and wisdom. Mindblowing that a king would turn to his 'fool' to help him through.
Regan and Goneril's betrayal of their father and their subsequent betrayals of each other with one sister killing the other over a lover.
You have Cordelia who is tried and true to her father and is returned to her father cold and dead. If you haven't read that scene when they bring Cordelia's body to a broken Lear then you must..it is heartwrenching.
It's just so intricately written....everyone has some connection that falls into the next and it hurtles to a fantastically tragic curtain.
(I think the Duke's get a bit boring but they have some good stuff too). Do you like King Lear? Have a good one!

Answer 2

I don't have much to add to those first two responses, both of which are excellent. You can see that "King Lear" is a play that affects people very profoundly.

I'll only add that its appeal is global, and is not restricted to English-speaking persons. Several years ago, I was performing in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and went to see a performance of "Lear" by a company from Georgia (in the former Soviet Union). The production was IN Georgian, and yet I have NEVER seen a clearer, more visually arresting, and more affecting production of the play. It was full of images that I'll remember for the rest of my life...and, if I ever get a chance to direct the play, I'll "borrow" some of 'em!

Answer 3

The language is majestic, even when Lear is descending into madness. The tragic ending with Cordelia,Regan, Goneril, Edmund and Lear all dead is too hopeless for my taste. No one in the play has any lasting joy. All the pain and suffering, lessons learned, reunions, all are for naught.