Synopsis

Taking as its starting point the story of an autocratic monarch deposed by his two power-hungry daughters, the play presents a parable of the ruthless cruelty imposed on us by the assumptions of modern society. Lear, his daughters and their conquerors too, have all suffered and are shown suffering hideously, caught in the trap. But freed at last from his sufferings, Lear perceives and gives voice to the urgent need both for an awareness of man's trapped state and for pity as a corrective.