Lear Alone – Scenesaver
Lear Alone is a new adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, using only King Lear’s lines in a unique performance set across five short episodes. Directed by Anthony Shrubsall and performed by Edmund Dehn this original show explores themes of ageing in today’s world, the increasingly problematic issue of homelessness, and isolation and its effects on mental health.
The show opens with Dehn sitting alone and obviously unhappy on a bench. Birdsong is prominent and Dehn begins to walk around the building whose grounds he is in, surreptitiously peering through the windows before beginning his first monologue, in which Lear is asking his daughters to describe the amount of love that they have for him to enable him to decide how to split the kingdom.
Dehn has excellent presence, and it is ea...