Escaped Alone - Royal Court

[DebbieDoesDouglas(Hodge)]

Word

this had its first preview last night, did anyone see it/hear anything about it? Is Twitter twittering? I'm goin a week Monday 

[Polly1]

Glad you've started this thread, DDDH. Going to be really boring and ask about running time. It was sold on it being her first full-length play in ages but I've heard it's only an hour, which would be a) a swizz and b) annoying as I've booked a matinee when an evening would have been better.

[Deleted]

Chill, kids.

[DebbieDoesDouglas(Hodge)]

God, an hour straight through would be quite pleasing! Iv been super worried it was gona be a 4 hourer
Whatever, grandma.

[Marwood]

Only paid £10 so not going to feel ripped off regarding the running time.

[Deleted]

Independent piece on Escaped Alone - interview with its director James Macdonald.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/james-macdonald-on-caryl-churchills-escaped-alone-im-drawn-to-plays-i-dont-know-how-to-do-a6819916.html

[Deleted]

I had a co-worker ask the other day if I wouldn't rather have a 3 hour play than a 90 minute play, as surely it's better value for money. It's a little hazy, but I think I just laughed in his face and shouted that NOTHING needs to be 3 hours long. I know the agonies of discovering you've booked a 90 minute matinee and a 3 hour evening show, but no power on earth will ever make me wish that a small-but-perfectly-formed play was longer, whereas I frequently wish the 3 hour bloaters had been hacked down somewhere in previews.

[DebbieDoesDouglas(Hodge)]

Twitter says its short and funny although some people didnt understand it

[dramaturg]

Saw it yesterday. 50 minutes long and it is funny, strange and engaging. Excellent performances from 3 of the 4 principals and 1 holding her own, but not quite as strong. Refreshing, memorable and interesting. Ms Churchill was in the building too.

[Lopsided]

I really enjoyed this last night, but would agree with Polly in her annoyance at it being sold as a 'full length' Churchill.

In a strong pack of actresses I particularly liked June Watson and her in-chair dancing.

I found it funny, bleak, ridiculous, and scary, especially Deborah Findlay's digression on the topic of cats.

Patrick Godfrey was there, who I am happy to report was fully clothed, although who knows how long it took him to get ready.

I'd highly recommend it, although not everyone around me agreed.

[Marwood]

Saw it tonight and I enjoyed it, I was grateful it only lasted 50 minutes to tell the truth (don't know how happy I'd be about paying £30 to see it), not a masterpiece by any stretch (I preferred Here We Go although that was a far more depressing/introspective affair) and some of the humour seemed just a bit too 'silly' as the play went on (maybe I was just disappointed that the seriously dark moments/intervals that are introduced into the play near the beginning didn't amount to much beyond a sort of Monty Python/Terry Gilliamesque sense of humour that got a bit too much as the play went on) but all of the actresses acquitted themselves well, didn't think anything profound had been said by the time it finished but it was a pleasant enough way to spend the night.

No spoilers beyond that, but this is REALLY not one to go and see if you or anyone going with you is in the slightest bit paranoid about cats...

[Deleted]

Oh, I am reminded of all the excellent lines of dialogue about cats from In The Republic Of Happiness suddenly. I shall have to reread that before seeing this, just for giggles.

[Deleted]

Well it fairly zips by in under an hour! Got a £10 ticket and don't think I'd have paid more for it.

As for the play. Well I may be getting a bit dense in my old age but I just didn't get it. Well part of it. The bits with the four women in the garden (fabulous set btw) is funny, sad and slightly disturbing but the interludes, I just didn't understand. Unless I missed some specific bit of the plot, they just didn't go anywhere. Perhaps someone else who has been and did understand it might explain?

Great cast. The only one who I thought was a bit weak was Kika Markham. It was a preview of course but I don't think she's found her rhythm yet. There were a lot of gaps between the supposed overlaps from most of the cast but I'm sure that will sort itself out during the run. June Watson gets the funny part so gets most of the laughs but it's Deborah Findlay who trumps it for me. I could listen to that glorious voice of hers all day and she is terrific in this. There's a very (VERY) wordy scene about cats where I almost gave her a standing ovation after she'd finished it!

Best ending of a play I've seen in a long time too. 

[Steve]

Saw this tonight, and it might as well be about us, how we have "escaped" being "alone" in our theatre love by congregating together in this wonderful Forum (thanks Burlybear , yet how we are nonetheless more than our Avatars, carrying with us demons and fears, history and secrets, some of which we reveal (eg Debbie lol ), some of which we don't. The play, like the forum, raises the question regarding exactly what it is we get from associating with each other like this.

This is not a play for lovers of conventional storytelling, and I imagine it will be rated very low by those who are looking for a beginning, a middle and an end, and drama in between. Slot this into the experimental category, and avoid if you don't like that category.

Spoilers follow, though I doubt this can be spoiled, as there is no plot, and foreknowledge may equip some to a richer experience by concentrating focus. . .

Basically, three (female) friends invite newcomer Mrs. Jarrett (Linda Bassett) to join them, secluded behind a large fence, where they chat about everything and nothing in a garden on a sunny day. They get together, chat, laugh, argue, sing and socialise.

Three things interrupt the flow of the conversation we are watching:

First, Churchill herself interrupts the flow of conversation, eliding huge chunks whenever it is vaguely predictable what will follow. This forces the audience to continuously disengage dramatically, simultaneously demonstrating how much of daily conversation is in fact predictable. If Parsley were a character in this play, and he started slating Angela Lansbury ("Angela Lansbury should not be on stage. . ."), the play would cut away there, denying us the belly laughs of shock arising from his utter disrespect for the great Dame (one of my favourite posts from the Old Forum, posted 14 March 2014). We would be in no doubt about what we had missed, but we'd be denied the pleasure of his full flow.

Churchill eschews the drama of conversation, so that she can demonstrate the structure of it, the stops, the starts, the turns, the way important and trivial subjects brush up against each other. She seeks to discover the value of all conversations, unconcerned with the specifics;

Second, each of the four ladies are given one monologue (Deborah Findlay gets the best one, but all the actresses are wonderful), in which they lay bare their deepest fears, their hidden histories, their deep depressions, their torrential rages. During these monologues, the other ladies freeze, unable to hear. We, the audience, are encouraged to analyse the value of this conversation to it's participants, with the privileged view of where each participant is really coming from;

Third, the conversation is repeatedly intercut with an absurd account of the apocalypse, rendered by Mrs. Jarrett (Linda Bassett) directly to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. This is the apocalypse as if processed through David Bowie's fabulous random lyric generator, whereby Bowie would feed news stories into a machine and have it remix all the words into new confounding absurd juxtapositions. Churchill has no respect for the perpetual fear-based end-of-the-world rambling of the daily news, which she sees as a joke, but she does know that it is a reflection of a real fear of life and death that we all experience. By jumbling all the reports of bird flu and tornadoes and whatnot into a Monty Python account of an apocalypse, Churchill seeks to reflect our personal terrors back at us, showing us the backdrop against which we seek to huddle down and connect with each other through the mundane, yet effective, medium of conversation.

So this play is about this forum, about how we are apart from the world when we are together in this forum, but also how we are a part of the world. It is about why we engage with each other, how we each do it differently, for different reasons, and yet how we all gain from it. I'm glad to be here, anyway.

4 stars, if you like this sort of thing.

[harry]

I thought this was wonderful. Yes it's very short but it really felt like a full play - I just think Caryl Churchill felt she had said everything she wanted to say so why make it longer?

All 4 characters were beautifully written and portrayed. You really feel you've been in the garden with them, chatting, drinking tea and finding out snippets of their lives. When they sing you want to join in, when they suddenly open up to the audience about their inner fears it is startling and heartbreaking to see the polite artifice fall away and the neurosis come tumbling out. And then see it suppressed again.

The interspersed "catastrophe" is a funny sideways look at life. Churchill mixes the extraordinary with the everyday to create some amazing mental images that initially sound absurd until you realise that they are happening (or almost happening) everyday.

But what I found most fascinating about the piece is the form leads to huge (and rather satisfying) ambiguity over what Churchill is trying to say about modern life. Has this catastrophe taken place before the garden scenes and she is saying that tea, chit chat and personal struggles will carry on regardless of bigger-picture problems. Does the catastrophe come after the garden scenes, suggesting we are sitting by, drinking tea and chatting while the world slides towards chaos. Or perhaps the catastrophe is happening simultaneously - even in times of major world problems we sit drinking tea and worrying about our own personal struggles.

However you look at it it is a funny, moving, thought-provoking and entertaining hour - it looks fantastic, features fabulous performances and is strangely comforting and uplifting. A real treat.

[Deleted]

LOVED this

10 stars from me

Better than "stand up and sing" by a million miles

I shall use many of the lines quoted by Linda Bassett in her apocalypse segments

Amazing amazing

[foxa]

I agree with the posts above. I got a £10 Monday dress circle seat (these seemed to be selling well, but not super fast, I logged on about an hour after the Monday booking started and there were a few decent seats left.) Linda Bassett and Deborah Findlay are two of my favourite actresses, so great to see them. Those of you who have seen it, what do you think the title means?

BTW, had pre-theatre dinner at the Antelope Pub on Eaton Terrace. Good and reasonable if you are looking for a bite in that area.

[Deleted]

'Escaped Alone' is a biblical quote from Job, 'And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.' It was also used by Melville in the epilogue of 'Moby Dick', essentially it refers to someone who is the last left to tell the story.

I should also mention that Churchill is now 77 and, while not the 'last left' is one of few playwrights of her age who are being commissioned or, indeed, who are still writing.

[foxa]

Thanks, Cardinal - should have you known you would have the answer! Yes, that makes sense given the play (and, as you say, that Churchill is still writing so is in a position to 'tell thee.')

[MrBunbury]

I saw this on Tuesday night when by sheer good luck the show was followed by a Q&A section with the cast. I enjoyed the play and it is typical Caryl Churchill's material with echoes of Far Away and The Skryker. Listening to the cast explaining their opinion on what the plays says (since of course Churchill does not give an explanation) and how they perform it was very interesting: Linda Bassett said several times that all references to apocalyptic events she makes during the play are actually based on man-made disasters that have actually happened in reality. Nobody knows if those events have occurred before, during or after the meeting in the garden (which in any case is not a single afternoon but at least a couple of months). When asked if, in their opinion, the play is a bleak representation of the future or a reflection of resilience and survival, all actresses strongly supported the latter hypothesis, highlighting that it is not even about older women but simply about people with experience of pain, depression or trauma. Kika Markhem quoted the New York Times review as the best way to encapsulate the meaning of the play: “Escaped Alone turns out to be about the horrible consequences of mortal carelessness."

[alexandra]

Thanks Cardinal and Mr B, very interesting. I'm finding it difficult to reconcile it being a "reflection of resilience and survival" with it being about "the horrible consequences of mortal carelessness" though. And what was the significance of Linda Bassett's character being an outsider, I wonder, and leaving them at the end? Was that just to add interest and show their friendly hospitality, or was she the character that then became the person who "escaped alone" from the subsequent apocalypse? And what was her remarkable "terrible rage" speech about (in the garden) - was that a reference to the apocalypse? Many questions, but a fantastic play.

[Latecomer]

Loved this. Weird, slightly creepy, so much to talk about afterwards! Great analysis and thoughts earlier in the thread, thank you all! And what great lighting and impressive set changes, really slick and kept you in the play, if you know what I mean! Even from row 2 the black was really black!
Recommended!

[Zoephile]

I thoroughly enjoyed this (a lot of wonderful lines to laugh about afterwards), but the cynic in me wonders if Churchill wrote the play set in the garden, decided it was too short for anyone to even pretend it was a full length play, remembered some random apocalypse notes she'd had a laugh with once, and had a moment of 'aha, I'll put them together and sit back and watch everyone scrabble around trying to make sense of my motivation'. Reminds me of a comic card of a work of art hanging in a gallery, crowds around admiring it, 'magnificent', insightful', etc, and the cleaner walking past muttering 'upside down'. But anyway, despite my cynicism about the actual point of it all, it was a fun introduction to Churchill's work for me.

[showgirl]

Bearing in mind Steve's caveat about this play probably not being for those who like a conventional dramatic format with a beginning, middle and end, I was going to avoid it, but decided at short notice to risk it after all and to treat it as an experiment. Not a huge risk for a short play and with tickets from only £12, though I haven't sat in the balcony at the Royal Court for about 40 years. Always good to try something different but doing so proved that my instincts were right: whilst it was well-performed, I found the format trying and unsatisfying. Despite the weight of opinion in favour of the play and production, I'm tempted to say "Emperor's new clothes" - and I would definitely prefer to have seen that great cast in something more worthy of their talent.

[Deleted]

Saw this on Monday. I reckon the title is a reference to possible audience reactions. 'Escape' being all you can think about if you're not enjoying it. 'Alone' being what you are if you actually enjoyed this complete nonsense...

I followed a couple into the underground afterwards. She had clearly loved the play, he was equally clearly unimpressed.

She: "But it's about all the possibilities of life, and, well, you know...?"
He: "No."

On the plus side, it's great to see four actresses acting their socks off. I just wish the material had been better.