Far Away (NHB Modern Plays)

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Far Away” is the second production in Muhlenberg’s mostly-virtual Mnemonic Theatre Festival at Muhlenberg, running through May. Information on all seven productions in the festival can be found at muhlenberg.edu/seesashow

Off to bed Joan goes, eventually, her little mind now able to comfortably accommodate the vicious acts she’s witnessed. The savagery will disturb no more, now that it’s been put in the context of a nice bedtime story — the bad guys vs. the good guys. It will disappear into the never-never land of her dreams.Far Away starts quietly but develops into a twisted fairy tale that haunts our consciousness with the hyper-reality of a nightmare. With the play’s elliptical poetry and surreal humour, the audience has to work hard to make connections between the scenes, which it transpires are set several years apart. We don’t know for sure what is going on but there are intimations of ethnic cleansing and suppression of dissidents in a totalitarian state, with the political strife ultimately descending into ecological catastrophe. The final scene brings Harper, Joan, and Todd together at the end of the world. A war has begun, but not an ordinary war: a war of, quite literally, everything against everything. Joan and Todd are now married, and Joan has run to Harper’s house to see Todd and get away from the war for a day. It’s clear, though, that there really is no escape, no rest. It’s hard for them to tell what is with us and what’s against us, and what “us” means anymore. (Harper asks Todd if he’d feed a hungry deer if it came into the yard. “Of course not,” Todd says. “I don’t understand that,” Harper says, “because the deer are with us. They have been for three weeks.”) Hotel represents yet another structural experimentation for Churchill. It is an opera, with music by Orlando Gough, set in eight identical hotel rooms superimposed together on stage, with actors playing multiple roles. A number of different couples occupy the rooms at one time or another, including a couple having an adulterous affair and another couple who are homosexual. A television set also figures as a major character. By doubling and tripling the actors in various roles, Churchill subtly emphasizes the commonality of human oppression and pain. Marlowe, Sam (13 February 2020). "Far Away review — this Hell is terrifyingly close to home". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 18 May 2020. Scene 2: Joan and Todd learn more about each other through a discussion about their current hat designs. Todd brings up a hypothesis that the way the company gets contracts is corrupt, claiming there is a certain person's brother-in-law that is involved. Joan wants to know more, but Todd doesn't want to talk about it at work. Joan changes the topic, saying she does not like to watch the trials at night. Todd says he watches them every night while drinking Pernod, or absinthe.

And so Joan goes to sleep. The next scenes take place some years later, and show us an older Joan, now working with a man named Todd in a hat factory. They talk about the hats they make, and their discussion shows them to be devoted artists. As the short scenes progress, the hats grow larger and brighter, until they are described as “enormous and preposterous.” When the play first premiered at the Royal Court 20 years ago, its war-torn setting could have alluded to the bubbling tensions between the superpowers of the West and the Middle East, which would eventually boil over into the Iraq war three years later. But in 2020, its frictious landscape seems to speak of the refugee crisis, people-smuggling, zero-hours contracts and Brexit-inspired suspicion of foreigners. The theme is brought to its climax in Joan's final monologue where she describes being so afraid of the duality created by the propaganda of this new world that she has trouble walking home because she can't tell whose side a stream is on, or the grass, or the flies, etc.Taylor, Paul (24 November 2006). "Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?, Royal Court Theatre, London". The Independent . Retrieved 27 May 2020. The playwright Alistair McDowall has stated that "It seems, through conversation with my peers, that the two plays with the biggest impact on my generation are Sarah Kane's Blasted and Far Away by Caryl Churchill. Far Away is endlessly talked about. It feels so bespoke and beautifully crafted but the scale is enormous – it's so wrought, so sprawling." [25] Production history [ edit ] Alice Saville of Exeunt wrote, "Churchill subtly scrapes away at the selectiveness of the stories we tell to give our world value, to make it feel safe and cosy." [17] Paul Ewing of Londonist asserted that "it's unsettling enough to leave the audience nervously laughing. [...] What may have seemed far away then looks a bit prophetic now." [18] Aleks Sierz of The Arts Desk said in 2020, "I do love this play, but I must admit that – unlike Churchill's very best work – its meaning doesn't deepen very much over the decades. [...] the nature of visions is that they either come literally true, or they remain visionary. And this one remains what it always was: a beautifully imagined fantastical nightmare." [19] Far Away was described as a "great play" on Saturday Review. [20] Reception from playwrights [ edit ] Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938, London) has become well known for her willingness to experiment with dramatic structure. Her innovations in this regard are sometimes so startling and compelling that reviewers tend to focus on the novelty of her works to the exclusion of her ideas. Churchill, however, is a playwright of ideas, ideas that are often difficult and, despite her bold theatricality, surprisingly subtle and elusive. Her principal concern is with the issues attendant on the individual’s struggle to emerge from the ensnarements of culture, class, economic systems, and the imperatives of the past. Each of these impediments to the development and happiness of the individual is explored in her works. Not surprisingly for a contemporary female writer, many times she makes use of female characters to explore such themes.

Gustavus Adolphus College ran the show for 2 weekends from October 30, 2009 to November 7, 2009. It was performed preceding another one of Caryl Churchill's plays Seven Jewish Children, as well as a response to this play called Seven Palestinian Children by Deb Margolin. [28] Her latest work Love and Information has no named characters, rather a series of unnamed voices in a collection of encounters circling around the central preoccupation. It is up to us as the audience to draw our conclusions as to the meaning of the possible connections and disconnections between the scenarios. Churchill’s A Number is a somewhat longer piece (running for about one hour) and with its more naturalistic style is also more accessible than Far Away. Again acting as a warning of where our society may be heading in the future, this time the focus is on how scientific advances — specifically human cloning — can impact on issues of personal identity in a play that examines nature versus nurture. Billington, Michael (19 February 2014). "Never mind 1984: Michael Billington's top five theatrical dystopias". The Guardian . Retrieved 30 March 2021.To celebrate her 70th birthday this month, the Royal Court is inviting a number of playwrights, myself included, to direct readings of Churchill's work. Over two weeks, a chronological selection will be presented, from Owners - with its tang of Joe Orton and its prescient portrait of an obsession with ownership - right through to her plays of the past decade, including the disintegrating anti-plays that make up the double bill Blue Heart, and the disturbing fable of a world at war with itself, Far Away. Far Away” runs Sunday, March 28, at 1 p.m., and Monday and Tuesday, March 29-30, at 7 p.m. Patrons can register to see the show at muhlenberg.edu/seeashow. Scott, Aaron (4 September 2012). "Review: Shaking the Tree's Far Away by Caryl Churchill". Portland Monthly . Retrieved 9 June 2020. She saw her uncle herding frightened, wounded people into the shed in the yard, beating a couple of them savagely. The unsettled Harper gradually reshapes Joan’s impressions around a benign hypothesis: Her uncle was trying to help those people, she says — only there were a few bad, traitorous ones who had to be punished.

Saint Cloud State University ran a production of Far Away from 20 to 24 November 2019. The production starred Katherine DeGroot as Joan, Jordan Flaherty as Todd, and Jessica Peters as Harper. It was directed by Vladimir Rovinsky. [30] Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. From A Mouthful of Birds (1986) onwards, she began to experiment with forms of dance-theatre, incorporating techniques developed from the performance tradition initiated by Antonin Artaud with his 'Theatre of Cruelty'. This move away from a clear Fabel dramaturgy towards increasingly fragmented and surrealistic narratives characterises her work as postmodernist.

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The play has received high praise from many notable playwrights and has been cited as an inspirational work.