Caryl Churchill
Royal Exchange Theatre Company
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
February 7-March 8, 2025: 1 hr 45 mins
It’s pretty well conventional to say that Caryl Churchill’s work can pose challenges for performers and audiences alike. This bill of two one-acters, directed by Sarah Frankcom, bears that out.
One side of the auditorium has had its ground level seats removed to make a flat, blank background except for an elevated bank of lights, intermittently used - at least as seen from most parts of the house, though not the upstairs seats above it, of course. The set (Rose Revitt) is a rectangle, approximately representing a small lawn for the first piece, Escaped Alone, (written in 2016) then flown to evoke a small room for the more recent and shorter What If If Only.
It's as if the Exchange acting area has almost become a “thrust” shape, accentuated particularly in Escaped Alone by having the actors spend much of their time seated at the four corners of the sward, with an occasional change of speaking angle, or movement to compensate for them having their back to some of the audience at any given time.
Their lines – the conversation-style ones of elderly ladies, chatting and reminiscing – could have garnered laughs almost continually, such is the observant skill and interactive cleverness of the writing, but it feels as if they’ve chosen, sensibly, to go for a selection. There’s something unnerving about them, after all, as we learn that Vi (Annette Badland) once served time for the manslaughter of her husband, and Sally (Margot Leicester) cheerfully admits she lied as a witness in her trial to make sure she didn’t go down for murder… but isn’t so sure she shouldn’t have.
Interwoven with this are eight soliloquies by the outsider character, Mrs Jarrett (Maureen Beattie), seven of them seeming to describe a world destroyed by uncontrollable forces. Earthquake, flood, poisoning, famine, tempest, sickness and fire – they sound like the seven bowls of wrath in the book of Revelation, though there are indications that climate change could be their common cause. The eighth is an extraordinary, repeated outburst of the words “Terrible rage!”. But small talk over tea resumes...
There are excellent performances from the three above-named, pacing things quite steadily to help as much of the verbal detail come across as possible, each recognisably in the manner to which they have become accustomed in their many TV roles. Souad Faress backs them up effectively as Lena.
But the second four-hander, What If If Only, contains the performance of the evening, from Danielle Henry (Someone). In this production that’s a young woman grieving for one who was dear to her, a female Orpheus longing for her male Euridice. The title says it all: things could have turned out differently, maybe if just one thing were changed. Ghosts (Annette Badland again, as Future, Lamin Touray as Present, and Bea Glancy as Child) appear, and there’s discussion of what might have come about… “equality and cake and no bad bits” perhaps; at least a future that wasn’t perfect, but better than what we got.
“What do you think?” is the question left hanging in the air. It’s another puzzle for the audience: take that home and think about it. But the humanity and emotional truthfulness that Danielle Henry shows in her role are the things that will stay with me.
More info and tickets here
