How do you stop your life from crumbling when everything else is falling apart? Tommy Kenter hits rock bottom as King Lear in Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy classic.

The old king is tired of his role as the centre of power. He abdicates and shares his kingdom between his three daughters. Two of them, Goneril and Regan, accept the gift with deceitful and ingratiating affection, but the youngest daughter, Cordelia, refrains. She will not pretend, and this causes the enraged King Lear to banish her from the kingdom.

Soon after, the deluded Lear finds himself on a stormy heath, driven away by his ungrateful daughters Goneril and Regan. He is humiliated, homeless, confused and enraged. “Does any here know me? Who is it that can tell me who I am?” asks Lear, while his court fool mocks him mercilessly.

In this barren no-man’s-land, Lear meets the Earl of Gloucester, who has had his eyes gouged out by Goneril and Regan. King Lear now begins his struggle to get his life back.

With King Lear Peter Langdal returns to the Royal Danish Playhouse after 23 years as manager of the Betty Nansen Theatre. The set designer is Karin Betz, who has worked with Peter Langdal for many years.