Is there any early modern play that more self-consciously engages the power of the platform stage than King Lear? All we have to do is look at how the space was transformed from scene to scene by the power of the fiction. For the most part, Shakespeare leaves out language that highlights the mimetic nature of the stage and yet the incredible scope of the action, its displacements, it wanderings, it political subplot, guarantees and inscribes the stage’s potential as a theatrical device, a device that can be used to question the theater’s art. In some instances we find that the stage moves beyond convention—insofar as we can define an early modern theatrical convention—to become the subject of direct, formal inquiry. What seems to be finally asked, and this has been examined by both A.C. Bradley and Henry Turner to some extent, is this: how does the stage allow for explorations in conceptual space that allow us to move beyond print, beyond words?
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