LAFPI

The Co-op of Pacific Resident Theatre Presents

Poor Poor Lear

A ONE-WOMAN SHOW
by Nina Sallinen and Katja Krohn
with passages by William Shakespeare

Translation and adaptation by Nina Sallinen
Directed by Katja Krohn
Performed by Nina Sallinen
Produced by Scott Jackson and Nina Sallinen

In this original dark comedy, actress Nina Sallinen portrays a 90 year-old Grande Dame (also named Nina Sallinen) of the Scandinavian Theater. The old actress has brazenly chosen Shakespeare’s King Lear as the material for her final artistic farewell performance. She has a special interest in the theme as she believes her own two daughters to be just as greedy and neglectful as King Lear’s.

The performance, which she stages in her own apartment, unintentionally highlights the artist’s own life story, as she gradually becomes cognizant of the deeper parallels between her life and that of King Lear’s. Instead of shaking up her own daughters with her performance, the old diva shakes up herself. Her priorities and past choices come into question.