LACUNA to Open at Griffin Theatre Company

Griffin Theatre Company will premiere lacuna by Eric Jiang (Rhomboid, ORIGIN STORY), an epic underworld dive into family, forgetting, and the dire consequences of commodifying the divine. The show will open at Belvoir's Downstairs Theatre from 30 July to 15 August as part of Griffin Theatre Company's 2026 Lookout program.

Claudia is jobless, cashless and flailing. Doomscrolling in the dark, ignoring emails from Centrelink, she wallows in the aftermath of an earth-shattering fight with her Mum. Why can't Claudia just get a job like a good Chinese daughter?

So, Claudia is delighted when a plum job opportunity falls right into her lap.

• Location: The underworld.
• Employer: Meng Po, the Goddess of Oblivion.
• Job Description: Erasing memories from the living.
• Salary: Negotiable.

The hours are weird and there's no option to work from home, but Claudia is happy to be diversity-hired if it gets her mind off things. And she soon discovers an unexpected side-perk: secretly tampering with the memories of her friends and family. Just small scrubs, at first. The time her skirt got stuck in an escalator. The time she said 'rizz' in front of a Gen Alpha. But when a mortal meddles with the sacred, the consequences can be severe.

Eric Jiang is a queer Chinese-Australian poet, playwright and artist based on Gadigal land. His poetry has been published in Cordite, Liminal, Australian Poetry Journal, Going Down Swinging and more. He is currently the recipient of a Hot Desk Fellowship from the Wheeler Centre and a Varuna Residency Fellowship. Eric's plays Rhomboid and Origin Story have been performed on independent theatre stages, with a new production of Rhomboid forthcoming in Melbourne. He is one of four writers in the Watershed Writers program run by Sydney Theatre Company. Eric's work considers and complicates queer futures, celebrates transformative and intense non-romantic relationships, critiques the ongoing project of Asian representation, and explores the limits of language.

Eric Jiang said: 'I'm so excited to celebrate queer people of colour, and the ways we survive, celebrate and connect. The show's a wild ride, dreaming into new worlds to explore the deep and complicated love we can have for family. I'm thrilled with a creative team who is exploding the text in all directions and dimensions in a way that feels exhilarating.'

Griffin Artistic Director, Declan Greene said: 'lacuna flits between the mortal and undead realm, between workplace comedy and domestic horror, like a queer-mythological Being John Malkovich, or a suburban-Australian Everything Everywhere All At Once. It's a one-of-a-kind, by a deliriously talented young playwright, and I'm thrilled that we get to premiere it with Essential Workers, under the direction of Nicole Pingon.'

Griffin Lookout provides Sydney's most exciting independent theatre makers with a season at Griffin as well as producing and artistic support from the Griffin team.

Past Griffin Lookout shows include notable works such as SISTREN by Iolanthe, Birdsong of Tomorrow by Nathan Harrison, UFO by re:group, A is for Apple by Jessica Bellamy, Mother May We by Mel Ree and Jali by Oliver Twist.

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