An aging King Lear decides to abdicate and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. He seeks a kind of oath of love before doing so, with which Goneril and Regan falsely comply. Feeling that any statement of “most love” would be false, Cordelia refuses, provoking Lear to disown her and then banish his faithful steward Kent who comes to her defense. She leaves to marry the king of France. However, Lear still wants the trappings of kingship, so proposes to move between the now-divided kingdoms of his two remaining daughters while demanding royal privileges, represented by a companion train of one hundred knights. Kent reappears in disguise and takes up service to Lear. However, Lear gets no further than two weeks at Goneril’s castle. She tires of his knights’ unruly behavior, and threatens to take away half of them. In a rage Lear moves to Regan’s, but she has removed herself to Gloucester’s house, which is too small for one hundred knights. There she and Goneril gradually reduce his status until he is little more than an unwanted house guest, stirring him to increasingly bitter tirades against their ingratitude. He finally banishes himself, winding up on the heath in a brutal storm.
Meanwhile, Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester, has convinced his father through the ruse of a forged letter and a staged wound from a fight that his legitimate son, Edgar, intends to assassinate him. Edmund also convinces Edgar that he is in danger (of course he is). Edgar flees and disguises himself as a beggar and madman to avoid detection. In this state he hides in a hovel on the heath during the storm. Nearby, Lear rages against the gods, nature, and his daughters. As the Fool and Kent try to get him shelter, they discover the “mad” Edgar. The quartet carry on in a madcap kind of way until Lear asks “Is man no more than this?” and has his clothes removed (in some performances). Gloucester finally finds them and leads them to shelter, where Lear cond
