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The importance of subtextual imagining in establishing Edgar's role and relationships had emerged as a feature of the rehearsal process which helped shape the stage version of King Lear which preceded Brook's work on his film. Charles Marowitz, his assistant director, described how he and Brook had identified the relationship between Edgar and Poor Tom as one of the play's major problems.⁴ The problem became more complicated when they found that Brian Murray, the actor who then played Edgar, suffered from an 'inner stiffness', which accentuated his difficulty in changing from courtier to Bedlam beggar and which resulted in a clash in acting styles between Edgar and Edmund (then played by James Booth). To assist the two actors in finding their own solutions, Marowitz had devised a series of subtextual improvisations to develop the relationship between the brothers. In one, Edmund as a Franciscan friar had to give Edgar confession and in so...

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