Acclaimed theatremaker Dan Colley and his company have turned their sights on a very (very) loose adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, examining the self and that part of us that's inaccessible to others.
Ahead of a national tour this October and November, Dan introduces Lost Lear below.
'We are all trapped by the limits of our mind. It is not possible to see the world we live in, only minute shuttered portions of it where the beam of our attention falls' - Nicci Gerard
My grandmother lived in a care home for people with dementia. In that home there was a row of fake shop fronts designed to make a section of corridor look like an Irish streetscape from the early 20th century. It was intended to comfort the residents with a familiar environment from their childhoods.
I learned about features of other care homes with a similar aim; a train carriage with screens for windows that displayed video of passing landscape; a prop phone with recorded voice of a loved one that could be conversed with again and again; an immersive village, like a film set, with avenues of clapboard houses, a town square, and lighting that mimicked the change from day to night.
There's a care method - the SPECAL Method, outlined in Oliver James' book Contented Dementia - that goes a step further. James' book encourages carers to identify a happy, fulfilling memory from the person's pre-dementia past, and actively work to keep them in that memory. It's not the memory loss that's confusing, James argues, it's all the people talking nonsense that can't possibly be true.
I learned, from the family carers I spoke to, that most people lie. It's a fact of caring for someone who often has a completely different understanding of the world to you. Not all carers go as far as to identify and maintain a bespoke immersive fiction, but most carers allow falsehoods to become true. It's easier. What harm?
I spoke to people with dementia. Many impressed upon me that dementia is not the end of you. It's a new phase. There's a long road between diagnosis and death and on that journey is life - lots of it. It's a more complicated life than you might have had before but it can be a good life. It's a question of how to manage it. How to maintain your relationships, your health, your dignity.
And there are as many ways to do that as there are people with dementia. No one has a perfect answer.
To my eye, that replica of a streetscape in the corridor of a care home was so terribly unconvincing. I wondered what it told me about my grandmother's perception of the world that someone thought this would comfort her. It was a momentary insight into how someone else sees the world. It was eerily unfamiliar to me.
And I wondered; how do any of us live together?
Lost Lear tours Ireland this October and November - find a date near you here.
