“Escaped Alone” by Caryl Churchill is a highly impressive new play – or is it two plays?First, we have four old friends, which the stage directions describe as “all at least seventy.” They sit in a small garden, sipping tea, and putting the world to rights with inconsequential and entertaining chatter. One enthuses about having her hips done, another recalls her time as a Lollipop Lady and they all joke about billions, trillions and Brazilians. It is a much superior, female version of TV sitcom “Last of the Summer Wine.”Second, we have abrupt jump cuts to a scarier world which is like “Waterworld” meets “Cannibal Apocalypse.” Now one of the cast, Mrs Jarrett, is plunged into a dark stage to speak of a planet wrecked by flooding, disaster, famine, conflagration and more. These segments are saved from being bleak beyond endurance by surreal proclamations – “The hunger began when 80 percent of food was diverted to TV programmes” or “gas masks were available on the NHS with a three-month waiting time and privately in a range of colours.” Possibly the best: “the wind developed by property developers started as breezes on cheeks and soon turned heads inside out."This is promptly followed by perhaps the finest moment as the four garden buddies jiggle around in their chairs and indulge in a hilariously dysfunctional version of the old Crystals hit “Da Doo Ron Ron.”The play’s strongest card is this sad yet comical interplay between Linda Bassett, Kika Markham, Deborah Findlay and June Watson. The characters’ conversations over months are condensed by Churchill to give us the best bits in 50 minutes, all presented in her non-naturalistic style of unfinished sentences : “I’ve got a lovely tabby but he’s a tom so..” or “men in the war never fired their guns because..” Most of the time, we can finish the words for them. The cast, directed by James MacDonald, has to get the timing right, which they usually do. In one touching sequence, they all dream of flying like birds. They would be happy to be soaring eagles and are less impressed with coming back in the next life as pigeons.It emerges that one of their number, Vi, had once stabbed her husband and was cleared of his murder, partly on the mitigating words of one of the others, Sally. Each of the four gets a monologue – about working life, prison, cats and finally a repeated warning about “terrible rage.”A new work by Caryl Churchill, at 77 one of the UK’s most acclaimed stage writers, author of “Serious Money” and many more, always demands attention. Still, the cynical might suggest that she had two different playlets, neither of which quite worked as standalones and simply spliced them together. What does the apocalyptic scenario have to do with the old friends? There are very distant parallels between their very personal tragedies and sadnesses (Vi recalls that she missed snacks and apples in prison) and the destruction of society (where fat people are eating each other to survive). Still, if this is a narrative about the end of life, it is much more successful than the brave but difficult “Here We Go” at the National Theatre recently.Right at the end the quartet notices the sun is dimming and shadows lengthening – “still it’s nice,” they say. “It’s always nice to be here.” They don’t know that they may be facing a doomsday scenario ahead. Simply brilliant. Rating: ****.“Escaped Alone” by Caryl Churchill continues at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London, to March 12. Information: http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/escapedalone
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