Lear

An article in the Los Angeles Times discusses King Lear with regards to the aging Boomer generation. It begins with an indication that Boomers would find it a fitting role for their generation, which (as described below) doesn't seem quite right. However, the actual focus is on actors being of an appropriate age to take on the role, as the culmination of their career. The starting point was a production starring Boomer John Lithgow (b. 1945) in the title role, with Annette Bening (b. 1958) as  his daughter Goneril.

The play appears to occur during a Crisis period, with a kingdom sundered and the king wandering mad. Of course, it's Lear himself who divides the kingdom and evidently instigates the Crisis. His older daughters take advantage of their father's poor judgement to pursue their own agendas. The youngest daughter, meanwhile, allows herself to be exiled rather than engage in untoward flattery.

As an old man in a Fourth Turning, Lear would make sense as either a Prophet or Artist, but his actions point toward the latter.  Like the Compromise Generation in the mid-19th century, he takes actions that can be considered fair (Why shouldn't all his daughters be given an equal share? Why shouldn't we let the individual states vote up-or-down on slavery?) but which exacerbate existing problems and rivalries to the point that the nation collapses. Further, his decision isn't for any purpose more noble than to avoid future trouble and retire easily:

Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now.

The rest of the characters appear to fit, as well.  Goneril and Regan behave exactly as Nomads could be expected, practical but amoral. They indulge their father's request for words of love, receive their part of the kingdom, and then plot against him.  It's feasible that the youngest, Cordelia, could be a Hero, as a child born late to an Artist generation parent might be.  Her actions, at least, show a Hero story: She loses her share of the realm when she refuses to humor her father,  works with others to help him ... and ends up as a sacrifice (in all but name) for her troubles.

Which doesn't mean Boomers or other Prophets would be unable to handle the part. Although the Times' McNulty does not seem overly impressed. Although he goes on to say, as others have in the past, that Lear is better as literature than on stage. He does mention three exceptional filmed versions: two by Heroes (Scofield and Olivier) and one by an Artist (Ian Holm). If no recent Artist portrayal on stage has changed his mind, perhaps that's correct.