Set seven years before King Lear, Erin Shields' play puts Lear's daughters centre stage as they negotiate the patriarchal systems built to keep them relegated to the sidelines.

In Goneril, we find a natural-born leader. In Regan, a boundary pusher. And in Cordelia, a reluctant peacekeeper. As the three work to dismantle their individual constraints, a storm of inner reckoning begins to brew that reflects their deepest yearnings and mirrors our contemporary world.

Whip-smart and wide awake, Queen Goneril was first staged by Soulpepper Theatre, Toronto, Canada, in 2022.

'Remains compelling to its conclusion — and, thankfully, has its own enjoyable in-between dramatic voice... Shakespearean, but unafraid to sample and remix his words' — The Globe and Mail

'Shields' script imbues the sisters with complex and sympathetic human motivations—love, empathy, fear, jealousy, shame, rage—which are constricted by the suffocating cellophane of social mores, race, class and gender. These are characters striving to be their best, while society and circumstance reduce them to clawing holes and gasping for air' — SesayArts Magazine