A brilliant and unsettling play from one of the UK's leading dramatists.
At the opening of the play, a young girl is questioning her aunt about having seen her uncle hitting people with an iron bar; by the end, several years later, the whole world is at war - including birds and animals.
Caryl Churchill's play Far Away is a howl of anguish at the increasing – and increasingly accepted – levels of inhumanity in a world seemingly perpetually involved in conflict.
The play was first performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, London, in November 2000.
'Conjures a devastatingly bleak dystopia... every word, every half sentence paints a picture that would make you laugh if it didn't want to make you cry... a tiny play, but an immense one. Chilling and thought-provoking'
— WhatsOnStage
'A dystopia of incomprehensible proportions... a masterclass of spare theatrical writing, encompassing tense family drama, political horror story, romance as well as absurdist comedy'
— A Younger Theatre
'Perhaps the ultimate fan favourite out of [Churchill's] kaleidoscopic oeuvre... revered because of how powerfully and pithily it reads on the page... a play to witness Churchill at hurricane force, savage, hilarious, totally unlike anyone else'
— Time Out
'A short play, but not a small play: it's global in scope, untethered by time, part fable, part prophecy... interlaces the bucolic, the fantastical and the harrowing, pairing [Churchill's] characteristic economy with wild, imaginative flourishes... dread-filled, disturbing, and prescient'
— The Stage
'A twisted fairy tale that demonstrates [Churchill's] matchless gift for merging the apocalyptic and the fantastical... brilliantly absurdist... A sliver of genius'
— Independent
'Caryl Churchill was expected to produce something explosive in Far Away, but... she has exceeded the critics' highest expectations'
— Observer
'You know you are in the hands of a master'
— Sunday Times
Author Biography:
Caryl Churchill is a leading playwright who has written widely for the stage, television and radio.
Her stage plays include: Owners (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1972); Objections to Sex and Violence (Royal Court, 1975); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Joint Stock, 1976); Vinegar Tom (Monstrous Regiment, 1976); Traps (Royal Court, 1977); Cloud Nine (Joint Stock, 1979); Three More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly and Royal Court, 1980); Top Girls (Royal Court, 1982); Fen (Joint Stock, 1983); Softcops (RSC, 1984); A Mouthful of Birds with David Lan (Joint Stock, 1986); Serious Money (Royal Court and Wyndham's, London, then Public Theater, New York, 1987); Icecream (Royal Court, 1989); Mad Forest (Central School of Speech and Drama, then Royal Court, 1990); Lives of the Great Poisoners with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1991); The Skriker (Royal National Theatre, 1994); Thyestes translated from Seneca (Royal Court, 1994); Hotel with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1997); This is a Chair (Royal Court, 1997); Blue Heart (Joint Stock, 1997); Far Away (Royal Court, 2000, and Albery, London, 2001, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2002); A Number (Royal Court, 2002, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2004); A Dream Play after Strindberg (Royal National Theatre, 2005); Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Royal Court, 2006, then Public Theater, New York, 2008); Bliss, translated from Olivier Choinière (Royal Court, 2008); Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (Royal Court, 2009); Love and Information (Royal Court, 2012); Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court, 2012); Here We Go (National Theatre, 2015); Escaped Alone (Royal Court, 2016), Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court, 2016) and Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. (Royal Court, 2019).