Escaped Alone and What If If Only at the Royal Exchange Theatre
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
The Royal Exchange Theatre launches another lively spring season of performance with two incredible short plays by the legendary Caryl Churchill. Directed by Sarah Frankcom, Escaped Alone and What If If Only offer a brilliant and reflective evening of theatre.
Set in a suburban English garden, Escaped Alone focuses on four older women who share a summer of afternoons in the backyard. Alternating gossip with a set of monologues, and juxtaposing tea with catastrophe, this striking play explores themes of communication, politics, crisis and female endurance. Most strikingly, this fascinating – and beautifully fractured – play places the secret selves of four older women front and centre.
What If If Only is a 20-minute meditation on grief, loss and the multiverse. The play centres around a character whose partner has died. Sitting at a table, they are visited by ghosts who present alternative biographies. Sharp, sensitive and fully charged, this show packs a punch in such a short time frame.
Of this powerful double bill, Sarah Frankcom, told us, “I’m thrilled to be stepping into the worlds of these extraordinary plays in which Churchill so brilliantly explodes the domestic and the apocalyptic. It shouldn’t feel radical to put female characters over seventy years old centre stage but it still does. Churchill’s Escaped Alone celebrates the emotional and intellectual dexterity that only older actresses can bring to live performance. What If If Only is epic in its ideas and audaciously distilled in its form – a brilliant challenge for any director.”
The Royal Exchange Theatre’s Spring Season – of female-driven stories and British theatre masterpieces – continues with Mike Leigh’s iconic contemporary classic, Abigail’s Party, with director Natalie Abrahami making her Exchange debut – we can’t wait.
