Anna Burnside reviews ‘a deeply accomplished and moving piece of work’.
In front of a filmy curtain, a charming Irish fellow is nutshelling King Lear. Not, it turns out, for the audience but for Conor, an awkward looking bloke in an anorak. He is shown the “rehearsal room” and introduced as “the understudy”.
He is thrust into a highly unusual production with a sweary woman, Joy, in the starring role. The charming guy plays Goneril and Regan before Conor is thrust into a pinny as Cordelia.
It slowly becomes clear that Joy is Conor’s elderly mother and charming guy is a doctor who has discovered that the only way into her degenerating mind is via the lines hardwired in her muscle memory.
Using projections and a worryingly lifelike puppet, writer/director Dan Colley reveals that Conor has been the rejected Cordelia to his mother’s imperious Lear, with all the pain that entails.
This is a deeply accomplished and moving piece of work. Conor’s pain, confusion and exasperation is clearly but economically painted. Joy is an equally nuanced character, divaish, entitled and, towards the end, a demanding pest.
There’s no judgement from Colley about a mother who abandons her child. Just an astoundingly theatrical take on aging that keeps the profundity of Shakespeare’s original and updates it for the squeezed middle generation.
In a strong season at the Traverse, this is the stand-out.
Lost Lear performs at the Traverse Theatre (Traverse One) until August 24, 2025. For performance times and details, go to the company’s website.
Photo by Ste Murray.
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