"Missing Mothers and Absent Fathers": Howard Barker's Seven Lears and Elaine Feinstein's Lear's Daughters

"Missing Mothers and Absent Fathers": Howard Barker's Seven Lears and Elaine Feinstein's Lear's Daughters GRAHAM SAUNDERS As the Father over olle family, so rlie King. as Father over many jamilies. extends his care to preserve,feed, clothe, instruct and defend the whole commonwealth. -Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha l If we are to accept that the family represents the bedrock of a stable society, or, as Milton tenned it, "the Fountain and Seminary of good subjects,"2 then what are we to make of Shakespeare's King Lear? Within that play we are presented with the alarming spectacle of a family and a kingdom that have both undergone savage dislocation and moral collapse. Barbara J. Bono believes that the family in King Lear is the key to providing an understanding of "a play that finally rests on our [own] kind nursery, in the pre-Oedipal realm of the maternal gesture.'" The dynamics of family structure motivating the tragic outcome that we see unfold in Shakespeare's play are shared by the dramatists Howard Barker and Elaine Feinstein in their respective plays Seven Lears (1989) and Lear's Daughters (1987). These plays use themes from King Lear to examine the idea of the family, particularly the role of the father within that family structure, in order to provide alternative readings to the familiar ending in Shakespeare's play. Both of the modem plays directly attribute Lear's tragic fate to his neglect of his roles as husband and father. Significantly, and particularly so in Seven Lears, crucial importance is placed on the role of Lear's wife, a figure notably absent from King Lear. Coppelia Kahn believes this absence to constitute a "conspicuous omission ... the mother's role in procreation is eclipsed by the father's, which is used to affirm male prerogative and male power.'" In The Absent Father in Modern Drama, Paul Rosefeldt makes a clear distinction between the missing and the absent character: "Absence implies residual presence and has repercussions the playwright wants elevated to audience consciousness."5 The restorations Modem Drama, 42 (Fall 1999) 401 402 GRAHAM SAUNDERS of Lear's wife in the two contemporary plays, from "a liminal figure" and "a presence that is always being deferred'" to an actual character who inhabits the same stage as Lear and his daughters, are offered almost as prologues and possible interpretations to the later events we witness and experience in King Lear. Howard Barker explains in a written introduction to Seven Lears the importance of the absent wife in Shakespeare's play: She is barely quoted even in the depths of rage or pity. She was therefore expunged from memory. This extinction can only be interpreted as repression. She was therefore the subject of an unjust hatred. This hatred was shared by Lear and all his daughters. This hatred, while unjust, may have been necessary.7 Peter Erickson, commenting on Shakespeare's play, believes that "Lear's divestment of his authority initiates the dismantling of patriarchal order and the reinstatement of maternal power."s In Seven Lears the missing queen, Clarissa, is shown to embody the qualities of moral integrity and unwavering leadership, qualities that Lear no longer possesses himself. Shakespeare shows the chaos that can result from power residing in the maternal; however, even a modem reworking of the play like Edward Bond's Lear (1971) also shows that once matriarchal power occupies a position of ultimate authorityI it becomes an equally brutal force. In contrast, Seven Lears seeks to show that the only hope for Lear's kingdom resides in the strength exhibited through Clarissa's absolute moral integrity. The benefits of maternal power over the patriarchal logos are clearly illustrated in Clarissa's speech to Lear's army: I am a queen, and you are peasants. [...] Whenyousee my camp fire burning, you will say, she bums the last wood for herself. Iam the queen, and thal is so. (They cheer her.)9 The full title of Barker's play, Seven Lears: The Pursuit of the Good, makes explicit the difference a maternal power structure will offer. Essentially, Clarissa and Lear oppose one another in the sense of the moral principles each one...