Lost Lear
Matt Smyth, Riverbank Arts Centre and Mermaid Arts Centre
Traverse Theatre
27 Jul, 2, 3, 5–10 Aug, 12–17 Aug, 19–24 Aug
July 2025
August 2025
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
19.30
28
29
30
31
1
21.30
10.30
4
17.30
10.00
14.00
17.30
10.00
14.00
28
29
30
31
1
21.30
10.30
4
17.30
10.00
14.00
17.30
10.00
14.00
11
13.15
16.15
19.15
10.00
13.15
16.15
18
19.15
10.00
13.15
16.15
19.15
10.00
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
A moving and darkly comic remix of Shakespeare’s play told from the point of view of Joy, a person with dementia who is living in an old memory of rehearsing King Lear. Joy’s delicately maintained reality is upended by the arrival of her estranged son who, being cast as Cordelia must find a way to speak his piece from within the limited role he’s given. Using puppetry, projection and live video effects, the audience are landed in Joy’s world as layers of her past and present, fiction and reality, overlap and distort. A thought-provoking meditation on theatre.