Book excerpt: Haunted by her dream of Cordelia and Lear, a woman confronts an elderly man, her lifelong antagonist and rival. During their passionate altercation he dismisses her success as a composer and demands she make the ultimate sacrifice: for him to flourish she, his protégée, must be silent. Five years later, she returns for a final and devastating encounter. Marina Carr's The Cordelia Dream premiered in December 2008 at Wilton's Music Hall, London, in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company.