About the Show
A moving and darkly comic remix of Shakespeare’s King Lear, Lost Lear is told from the point of view of Joy, a person living with dementia who exists within an old memory of rehearsing the play. Joy’s delicately maintained reality is upended by the arrival of her estranged son. Using puppetry, projection, and live video effects, the audience is drawn into Joy’s world as layers of past and present, fiction and reality, overlap and distort. Lost Lear offers a thought-provoking meditation on theater and the possibility of communicating across the chasms between us.
Funded by Culture Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland and supported by Fishamble’s New Play Clinic.
Content Warning: this performance contains some strobe lighting effects. Suitable for ages 12+.
An astonishing piece of theatre
Financial Times ★★★★★
Photos by Ste Murray
Runtime: 1 hour, 20 minutes (no intermission)
Please note all times are approximate and subject to change without notice.
About Boundless
A new initiative representing the organization’s commitment to expanding both its artistic offerings and its presence throughout Charleston. Bringing world-class programming to iconic venues and unexpected locations across the city, Boundless reflects the Gaillard’s belief that transformative artistic experiences can take root anywhere.
About PURE Theatre
PURE Theatre is a professional regional theatre in Charleston, South Carolina, dedicated to bold contemporary work that is fearless, intimate, and alive in the room. For more than two decades, PURE has built its reputation on plays that are urgent, human, funny, challenging, beautiful, and impossible to ignore.
Known for its ensemble of exceptional artists and its commitment to bold new voices, PURE creates theatre that asks something of us: to listen more closely, think more honestly, and leave the room a little less certain than when we entered. PURE’s productions bring people together for experiences that linger, sparking conversation, reflection, and connection long after the performance ends.
Rooted in Charleston and working at a national-caliber level, PURE has become an essential part of the city’s cultural life: intimate, fearless, and unmistakably itself.
About the College of Charleston
An integral part of the Charleston cultural landscape, the School of the Arts presents approximately 250 performances annually with local audiences. Its faculty, students, and alumni are important contributors to all of Charleston’s art organizations.
The award winning Department of Theatre and Dance in the School of the Arts at the College of Charleston offers conservatory-like training in elite performance spaces. Its provides Charleston audiences with a varied and diverse annual production season which traverses a wide array of genres from contemporary to classical, from musical theatre to Shakespeare, and from the charmingly comic to the profoundly tragic. It offers a BA degree in Theatre with concentrations in performance, design, theatre for youth, and theatre studies. It also offers a BA degree in Dance with a concentration in performance/choreography.