King Lear, Bradley (1963: 208f.) says, is possibly Shakespeare's best play when read. When staged it is inferior to the other three great tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. The reason for this discrepancy between the play as read and as staged is that “the number of essential characters is so large, their actions and movements are so complicated, and events towards the close crowd on one another so thickly” that even “the reader's attention […] is overstrained;” a cut stage version, he argues, will make the play even more unintelligible. Charles Marowitz, who was co-director in Peter Brook's renowned 1962 production of King Lear, takes the contrary view; the play, he finds, “is so organically conceived that one can cut out great chunks and still not impair its essence” (Williams, 1992: 20). B apparently agreed with Marowitz; his King Lear was cut with about one third.

Rejecting the existing Swedish translations of the play, B commissioned Britt G. Hallqvist to provide him with “a playable, speakable and above all intelligible version,” as he writes in the theatre program (Shakespeare, 1984: 6); he also expresses his gratitude for the “robust and solid equipment” she had provided his team with in their “difficult expedition into the hard-topenetrate and mysterious continent called King Lear.” Hallqvist's integral translation is reprinted in the program; changes in the performance are indicated in the text. It is not mentioned on which source text the translator has based her translation, but B's somewhat ironical remark in the program on “brilliant commentators like Kenneth Muir” suggests that it is Muir's edition of King Lear in the renowned Arden Shakespeare that has formed the basis for the translation.

King Lear, B summarised tongue-in-cheek during the rehearsal period, is actually “an ordinary story about a dominant pater familias who takes early retirement and divides the heritage between his children in the hope of binding them with constant gratitude and happiness, a daily guest who gives good advice and knows everything better, self-contentedly assured that he has secured board and lodging for the rest of his life. But the king is mistaken” (Dagens Nyheter Dec. 7, 1983).