I read this along with watching the 2015 Stratford Festival recording of the play, which was a fantastic experience. Then the whole time I thought it was so familiar. Oh, right! I saw the movie “Ran” last year and it is 100% Lear.

Overall, I think this is an ambitious play and that lends itself to being slightly overlong and overwrought. It does not quite come together but I also like that it tries much harder than some of the others. Watching it performed obviously influenced me away from just the text, too. But to be honest I always like watching a performance along with the lines, so I won’t be stopping that practice anytime soon. I’m reading with my complete works so just chose a King Lear version with a cool cover. It’ll be a long time reading this huge book; not worth marking it along with progress and doing separate reviews. Life is too short. But I wanted to get to this specifically because I’m about to read Learwife.