Last Updated on 29 June 2021 by Showcall Editorial Team
And Tomorrow Theatre Company has created web series Lear Alone, based on King Lear, to explore social isolation, homelessness and ageing
Shakespeare’s King Lear has been adapted into a web series, Lear Alone, telling a new story exploring social isolation, homelessness and ageing.
Created by And Tomorrow Theatre Company, it uses just King Lear’s lines from the first folio of Shakespeare’s tragedy to explore Lear Alone’s inter-related themes, turning it into a study of one man’s vulnerability as he confronts and negotiates a digital world.
It is performed solely by 69-year-old actor Edmund Dehn, playing the part of an actor playing Lear, trying to find his voice and his place in the world as he grapples with homelessness.
The project was filmed on location in and around London, starting at actors’ care home Denville Hall in north-west London. It has been made in collaboration with homelessness charity Crisis.
Available to watch for free, five 10-minute episodes will be released weekly on YouTube from 11 July to 8 August 2021. They will remain available until 31 August. It is set to be on this link: youtube.com/channel/UC8bYLmSRzK7MxwJpNh47KOQ
By presenting the piece digitally and for free, And Tomorrow Theatre Company hope to reach beyond a regular theatregoing audience and to start new conversations around preconceptions of homelessness, particularly in relation to older people.
Director Anthony Shrubsall said: “Lear is timeless and unfortunately so is homelessness. In a time when we have all felt so alone, it seemed right to use the artistry of the former to highlight the reality of the latter.”
The series was created with cinematographer, sound recordist and editor Charles Teton, with music composed by Zelida Gordon.
And Tomorrow Theatre Company takes an international outlook with special interest in exploring historical characters, both real-life and fictional. Their inaugural production, Death of a Hunter, drew together an English translation of a German play by Rolf Hochhuth about American literary icon Ernest Hemingway and was presented in 2020 on YouTube in association with London’s Finborough Theatre, where it won an OffComm award.
