KING OF TEXAS

A land baron of awesome authority is embroiled in a life and death struggle with the elements, family greed, and the violent threat of war in this epic updating of William Shakespeare’s immortal drama, “King Lear.”

John Lear’s (Emmy and Golden Globe-nominee Patrick Stewart, A Christmas Carol ) legacy is his empire built from a raw stretch of Texas land. But as his glory days slip away, he chooses to divide it among his daughters: Claudia, (Julie Cox, David Copperfield ) closest to her father’s spirit, and the avaricious Susannah (Academy Award-winner Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock) and Rebecca (Emmy-nominee Lauren Holly, Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot ). But Lear’s plan comes with a hitch, for only the daughters who prove their love will share the inheritance. Susannah and Rebecca are all too willing to secure their future with lies. But Claudia refuses to indulge her father, and for her honesty, she is stripped of the Lear family name and banished forever.

Alone and afraid, Claudia seeks shelter with her Tejano friend, Toribo Menchaca (Golden Globe-nominee Steven Bauer, Traffic ). He is also her father’s mortal enemy—a man who scouted for the Mexican army, and whom Lear holds responsible for the death of his sons in the Goliad massacre. But Claudia’s exile becomes a catalyst for something even far more divisive than standing with the enemy. For the manipulative Susannah and Rebecca have secured a stranglehold on the Lear property, and as their father banished Claudia, they now banish him into the wilds. Battling the unpredictable threats of nature, the dangers of a secret assassin, and an encroaching, inescapable madness, Lear reaches toward a desperate reunion with Claudia, and an inevitable destiny shadowed by the sins of a father.

The mythic landscape of the Old West provides an ideal, and provocative, setting for William Shakespeare’s timeless drama of providence and human nature. Resonating with complex psychological intrigue, and fuelled by explosive action and an extraordinary array of talent, King of Texas is a triumph.