tate's "lear" remains famous as an example of an ill-conceived adaptation arising from insensitivity to shakespeare's tragic vision. tate's genius was not in language – many of his interpolated lines don't even scan – but in structure; his lear begins brilliantly with the edmund the bastard's first attention-grabbing speech, and ends with lear's heroic saving of cordelia in the prison and a restoration of justice to the throne. tate's worldview, and that of the theatrical world that embraced (and demanded) his "happy ending" versions of the bard's tragic works (such as "king lear" and "romeo and juliet") for over a century, arose from a profoundly different sense of morality in society and of the role that theatre and art should play within that society. tate's versions of shakespeare see the responsibility of theatre as a transformative agent for positive change by holding a moral mirror up to our baser instincts. tate's versions of what we now consider some of the bard's greatest works dominated the stage throughout the 18th century precisely because the ages of enlightenment and reason found shakespeare's "tragic vision" immoral, and his tragic works unstageable. tate is seldom performed today, though in 1985, the riverside shakespeare company mounted a successful production of "the history of king lear" at the shakespeare center, heralded by some as a "lear for the age of ronald reagan."