Tate's Motives and Audiences Today

After reading and discussing Tate's adaptation of King Lear, I became fixed on Tate's intentions and reasons for changing the things he changed. Tate's adaptation is obviously clearer and easier to read. Tate certainly viewed the ambiguities in Shakespeare's King Lear as flaws and set out to fix or clarify what Shakespeare left unexplained. His reasons for forming a romance between Edgar and Cordelia were mainly to provide a motive for Cordelia's indifference or reluctance to share her love for her father and also to give reason behind Edgar's disguise as a mad man. He viewed Edgar's disguise in Shakespeare's original as "a poor shift to save his life". In my opinion, I find ambiguities (such as Cordelia's unstated motives) to provide for a much more complex and thought provoking piece (specifically for textual pieces). Tate's decision to clarify Cordelia's motives almost becomes a cop out or a simple conclusion to the play. It does not demand anything or challenge the readers to think for themselves. I view it as a the easiest way to answer a difficult question.

 The fact that Tate felt a need to clean up the ambiguities in the play was also interesting because I feel that this want or need for clarifications and explanations are existent in many audiences today (at least in relation to films). For example, Inception was an incredibly popular movie that left so many people frustrated and even annoyed that the most important question was left unanswered. Audiences today want so desperately to know the answer to every question and want to be able to fill in the pieces to the puzzle. Another example would be Shutter Island. It is different from Inception in the fact that everything was explained at the end of the movie. The audience finds out exactly why characters behaved in the way that they did and there really aren't any gaps for the audience to fill in by themselves.