King Lear The Blinding of Gloucester: Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland, OH, 1974

King Lear is usually considered one of Shakespeare's most brutal plays, but in fact physical violence occurs rarely on stage: this blinding being the most stressful - yet, in fact, as appears here, the cruelty is impossible to show directly, and is usually concealed from the audience though Gloucester's bloodied face will usually be shown afterwards. Cornwall is wounded as part of this scene. Later Edgar does kill Oswald in straight fight, and the second killing on stage, Edmund's, is also by Edgar, but conducted as part of a formal duel and is not monstrous. Photographer: James Fry; Cornwall: Robert Allman; Regan: Janet Hayes; Gloucester: John Newton. Collection http://www.ulib.csuohio.edu/shakespeare/Copyright:http://www.clevelandmemory.org/copyright/ Repository: Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections.