ABSTRACT
The discussion of Howard Barker that ended the previous chapter focused primarily on Barker’s postmodern ethos and the questions his adaptation raised for the continued study of Shakespeare in light of its concerted effort to eradicate him. Like most discussions of Barker, mine focused on violence. What I have not yet considered in relation to Barker is the rather glaring oversight his adaptation makes in regard to gender. Seven Lears begins with a false promise to reinstate the missing mother from King Lear. Yet where is the mother in Barker’s play? Certainly Clarissa appears, but the play can hardly be said to focus on her role or explain her absence; the play remains, as Susan Bennett writes, persistently about ‘the seven ages of the one man’. 1 What are we to make of a play that promises to rewrite what is often regarded as a misogynistic story from a woman’s perspective yet which withholds on this promise and delivers only violence?
