[is reading Nan Z. Da’s book “The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear.” Da writes: "I believe Lear anticipates totalitarianism, Left and Right, East and West. Like its twin, Coriolanus, written around the same time, Lear knows that if you look and listen for duplicative assent among adults you will know what kind of world you live in. Totalitarianism exists in copies, in everyone who wishes to be an extension of the totalitarian state. You’re in a play that, like its worst characters, turns resolutely against extraneous human lives. Lear’s kingdom is such an empty place, and yet almost everyone is a spare.”]