Shakespeare’s Royal Education

Host Dennis Leap discusses the controversy caused by Shakespeare’s play King Lear. A not-so-accomplished writer, Nahum Tate, took Shakespeare’s play and rewrote it to soften the tragic scenes and themes of the play. For a time this play completely replaced Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Tate's play, titled “The History of King Lear,” was staged in 1985 at the Shakespeare Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A proof that modern audiences don’t want to face the tragedy caused by human nature.