Tragedies

Edmund perfects his betrayal of Edgar, and Lear is driven mad and onto the heath by his daughters.

Lear demands his daughters flatter him to earn their share of the kingdom. Cordelia refuses and is banished. Lear resigns the crown, Goneril begins a campaign of passive aggression and gaslighting to drive him mad.

The second play in the tragedy of the House of Atreus. Pelops, resurrected by Hermes, journeys to Elis to find a new home and brings the curse upon his family.

Richard is imprisoned at Pomfret, Bolingbroke forgives Rutland but executes the other traitors. He vows a crusade to repent of his guilt.

Richard surrenders the crown to Bolingbrook in Parliament. Carlisle prohesies civil war.

In Act III of Shakespeare’s Richard II, the struggle for England’s throne reaches its turning point. As Bolingbroke’s power grows, Richard returns to find his kingdom slipping away. At Flint Castle, the once-divine king confronts the terrifying possibility that a monarch is, after all, only a man. In an act filled with betrayal, despair, and some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful poetry, Richard begins his descent from majesty to mortality.

John of Gaunt delivers his prophecy to Richard, Richard departs for Ireland and Bolingbroke raises to English nobles in rebellion

In the first act of Shakespeare’s Richard II, Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, accuses the Duke of Norfolk of treason. King Richard fails to persuade them to reconcile and declares they shall fight a duel to settle the matter.

Years after she was led to Aulis to be sacrificed, Iphigenia lives in exile as a priestess of Artemis, charged with sacrificing strangers who come to her shores. When two Greek prisoners arrive, she discovers that one is her long-lost brother Orestes. Euripides’ Iphigenia Among the Taurians is a story of recognition, escape, and a family broken by violence given one unexpected chance at reunion.

An old, blind Oedipus comes at last to Colonus, seeking a place to die. Hunted by his past and fought over for the strange power promised by his death, the ruined king must confront his sons, his city, and the gods before finding a final resting place. Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus is a haunting story of exile, reconciliation, and redemption at the end of a long and terrible life.