A new play inspired by Federico García Lorca’s unfinished Comedia sin título will premiere at Calder Bookshop & Theatre in London this December, exploring the role of theatre in an era marked by political division and the rise of far-right movements.
Wood for the Graves, written by James Corley and directed by Harry Mackrill, will be presented by Nisha Oza for The Lot on 4 and 5 December 2026 as a staged workshop. The 30-minute play reimagines Lorca’s final, unfinished work for a contemporary audience, examining the tensions between art, politics and public responsibility.
Set inside a theatre where a director refuses to raise the curtain while chaos unfolds outside, Wood for the Graves blends satire, absurdist comedy and political drama. As revolutionaries draw closer, the boundaries between performance and reality begin to collapse.
Corley’s new work draws inspiration from Lorca’s Comedia sin título, which the Spanish playwright began writing amid escalating political unrest before his murder by fascist forces in 1936. Relocating the action to present-day London, the play asks what responsibility theatre has in confronting the crises of its time.
The production marks the latest collaboration between Corley, Mackrill and producer Nisha Oza through independent theatre company The Lot. Previous projects include What It Means, which received four stars from The Guardian, and World’s End, named Theatre Weekly’s Off West End Production of the Year.
The cast includes Lucy Cohu, Alisha Bailey, Tom Stuart, Jimena Larraguivel, Joshua McCord, Tyler Pringle and Paksie Vernon.
The Lot said: “Theatre is a public act. It brings people together to question the world, remember what might otherwise be forgotten, and imagine how things could be different. This is what drives us at The Lot.
“Wood for the Graves confronts a question that sits at the heart of our work: what responsibility does theatre have to the society in which it exists? The play doesn’t let anyone off easily. It challenges the expectation that an audience should simply be entertained, but it is equally sceptical of artists who mistake their own convictions for meaningful action. That contradiction interests us. We believe theatre should be as willing to question itself as it is to question the world around it.
“Lorca understood that theatre and the society in which it is made could not be separated. That remains true today. An audience doesn’t leave the world behind when it enters a theatre, and neither do the people making the work. We can’t pretend that a play will resolve the conflicts outside its doors. But it can ask us to look at those conflicts differently, and to consider our own place within them. For us, that is part of theatre’s social and civic purpose, and why making it remains necessary.”
Presented as a staged workshop, Wood for the Graves brings together a seven-strong ensemble to explore a question that has echoed through theatre for generations: what is the purpose of theatre if it cannot tell the truth?
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
