Volume 33, Number 7 · April 24, 1986
The Edo Lear
By Jan Kott, Translated by Lillian Vallee
Ran
a film, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa
Madness awaits everyone at the close of that cold night. 'These four are already mad,' wrote Camus about King Lear. 'One is mad by profession, another by choice, and two from the suffering they could not bear.' The jester is mad by profession; Edgar, in order to save his life; Lear escapes into madness; and Kent alone tries to fend it off to the very last. In the middle of the third act the three exiles find their last refuge from a raging nature in the abject hut where Edgar had hidden himself earlier. This is the key scene for every interpretation of Lear but even more so for a theatrical or cinematic vision of the play.
Review, 2945 words
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