Screenplay by: Reginald T. Jackson
Rating: PG 13
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Logline: Too Wong Foo… meets King Lear
Lead Characters: Mother Lear, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Albany, Cornwall, Kent, Glouster.
Supporting Characters: Mother of the House of France, Oswalina, Glamour Boys, Edgar.
Remember English class? Reading boring Shakespeare plays and sonnets, trying to figure out what he was saying? Well Forget! HOUSE OF LEAR is a roller coaster ride! Hold on tight because big Willie and I have flipped the script and what you will see will amaze and seduce you into loving iambic pentameter.
HOUSE OF LEAR is a radical feature film adaptation of King Lear set in the murky underworld of New York City. Lear – now Mother Lear is a black drag queen dying of AIDS. Mother Lear is the most powerful legendary diva in all of New York City and commands a ball and vogue house of thousands of “children.” Her riches are many, even if her friends are few.
Goneril and Regan are also drag queens and Mother Lear’s vicious daughters out to steal their mother’s house and control and install themselves as the new mothers of the HOUSE OF LEAR. But in this dangerous world no one can be trusted and everyone turns on everyone. The legendary beauty, Cordelia, has fallen victim to Mother Lear’s wrath and later the jealousy of her sisters.
As an epic drama unfolds, Mother Lear slips deeper and deeper into dementia and illness, while still raging at her treacherous daughters and the famous storm, set on the New York City West Side Highway Piers. Mother Lear’s boy toys and loyal servants the glamour boys follow her each step of the way into madness and ultimately death. Death and deceit never looked so stylish and fashionable.