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Play by Caryl Churchill. Directed by Stephen Daldry.
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"When you've been here a week and look back it won't seem the same at all."
Joan is staying over at her auntie's house. Her bed is strange. The air is cold. But it's always odd in a new place. Especially this new place.
Cast: Linda Bassett with Annabelle Seymour-Julien, Kevin Mckidd and Katherine Tozer
Caryl Churchill is the author of over twenty plays, including many first seen at the Royal Court such as Top Girls, Serious Money, Ice Cream, Cloud Nine (with Joint Stock) and Blue Heart (with Out Of Joint).
Far Away was originally seen at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs where it played a sell out season in November/December 2000.
On 1 February 2001: From week commencing 5 February 2001 the Friday and Saturday performance schedule will change: The 9.30pm performance will be cancelled, instead there will be a performance at 6.00pm - this is in addition to the 7.45pm performance which remains the same.
Stephen Daldry's London stage directing credits include Billy Elliot The Musical (Victoria Palace Theatre 2005), Caryl Churchill's A Number (Royal Court Theatre 2002), David Hare's Via Dolorosa (Royal Court Theatre 1998 returned Duchess Theatre 2002) and J B Priestly's An Inspector Calls (National Theatre 1992, Aldwych Theatre 1993, returned Garrick Theatre 1995, Playhouse Theatre 2001).
ROYAL COURT THEATRE UPSTAIRS Previewed 23 November, Opened 30 November 2000, Closed 22 December 2000 transferred to
ALBERY Theatre Run 18 January 2001 to 3 March 2001
Extracts from the reviews (from Royal Court Theatre Upstairs run):
"Caryl Churchill is the most original playwright in Britain. She writes like a visionary, a poet, an absurdist, a politician, a satirist. She writes the plays she needs to write, not the plays that theatres want to present. Her new play, Far Away, is only 50 minutes long, has a large cast (only four of whom speak), and plays twice nightly - in the small Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. It is also the most important piece of presented by the Royal Court since it reopened early this year... For Stephen Daldry, who directs, no contrast could be more marked than this bleak vision after his last project, the soft-hearted film Billy Elliot. I've never yet found, however, that Daldry's talent lies with new plays. He's good on visuals - scene-changes are brilliantly staged - and weak on text... Still, Churchill's nightmare vision holds its audience. Poetry, absurdism, moral seriousness, all come together." The Financial Times
"British theatre is the best in the world because of its commitment to new writing. Our cultural traditions are maintained by the continual shock of the new. And the Royal Court in London's Sloane Square is the proud flagship. Occasionally one sees there a new play that makes telling you about it not only a duty but a positive pleasure. Such is the case with Caryl Churchill's Far Away, the most astonishing new play of the year. It is about an hour long. And about the end of the world. The director is Stephen Daldry, whose debut film Billy Elliot has caused something of a stir; he is, especially, a magical stager of plays..." The Daily Mail
"A new Caryl Churchill play is an event. So too is a production by Stephen Daldry. Put them together and you are bound to get something remarkable. But although this 50-minute play about a descent into the dark ages' shocks and surprises, it moves from the real to the surreal in ways I found less than convincing. The first scene, however, is a model of dramatic writing - one in which Churchill ratchets up the tension line by line... Imagine The Secret Garden rewritten by Pinter and you get some idea of the power of this first scene... Thereafter the tension eases slightly... Churchill's best effects are achieved through the sudden injection of shock words that set off seismic disturbances. Daldry's production and McNeil's design also typically achieve epic effects in a tiny space, not least when a small army of manacled prisoners is paraded across the stage... The evening constantly astonishes. But, while I am prepared to accept Churchill's thesis that we are slowly sliding into barbarism, I would prefer the case to be argued rather than presented as a dramatic given." The Guardian
"Caryl Churchill is the least predictable of contemporary dramatists, and you are never sure where she is going to jump next... Hopes were therefore high for this new piece, particularly since it is directed by Stephen Daldry, that great master of coups de theatre, now back at the Court after his great success with the film Billy Elliot. Both director and writer, however, are in disappointing form. The brief play (50 minutes) seems much less original than most of Churchill's work, owing a heavy debt to Pinter's Ashes to Ashes in its edgy dialogue and paranoid portrait of an England taken over by death camps and other dystopian horrors... And although early reports suggested that a cast of 100 were going to be let loose in the small Theatre Upstairs, it turns out to be a largely low-key and far from spectacular production, though there is one scene that sends shivers down the spine... Daldry's production of a work that somehow contrives to be both apocalyptic and trivial achieves a strong atmosphere of unease and menace, and there are compelling performances from Annabelle Seymour-Julen and Katherine Tozer as the young and older Joan. There is, however, no disguising the fact that the drama's gloom-and-doom seems both glib and modish, nor is there enough detail in the writing to persuade us to care about the characters." The Daily Telegraph |
