Escaped Alone and What If If Only- The Royal Exchange, Manchester

Writer: Carl Churchill

Director: Sarah Frankcom

In her later plays author Caryl Churchill moves towards shorter, condensed works which still pack an emotional punch but may create a sense of not providing a full night’s entertainment. Manchester’s Royal Exchange resolves this issue by generously staging a double bill of two short plays.

At the opening of Escaped Alone Mrs Jarrett (Maureen Beattie) is invited to join three of her neighbours, women in their seventies sitting in a garden taking tea and chatting. The conversation is wide ranging covering trivial issues like a television serial and more intense personal matters.

Vi (Annette Badland) served time in prison for killing her husband. Sally (Margot Leicester) gave a testimony which ensured the crime was considered manslaughter not murder but she may be having second thoughts on the issue. The depression experienced by Lena (Souad Faress) is of an intensity to push her towards agoraphobia while Sally’s fear of cats is close to debilitating.

Manchester is unlikely to see a higher standard of acting this season as a flawless cast deliver Churchill’s fascinating but challenging dialogue ( over-lapping, fractured and obscure) in a completely natural manner. There is a high level of humour in the dialogue. The agoraphobic Lena’s wistful desire to visit Japan prompts the tart response she ought to try something less ambitious like going to Tesco.

When Sally and Vi unexpectedly burst into a rendition of the pop song “Da Doo Ron Ron” Lena looks initially intimidated before gaining courage and joining the chorus. Although Vi seems reconciled with her actions and the consequences, a stark monologue from Annette Badland illustrates how she is devastated by being estranged from her son. With hunched shoulders and standing while the other characters sit, Maureen Beattie’s Mrs Jarrett seems the outsider in the group, cautious and unsure. Margot Leicester’s Sally is the most confident so her descent into a panic attack at the obsessive thought of cats gaining entry to her home becomes shocking.

The theme of parallel universes creeps into the conversation and, from time to time, Maureen Beattie steps out of character and addresses the audience direct describing a series of apocalyptic events in the past tense. They are all caused by humanity rather than nature and become increasingly absurd and darkly funny satirising developments which are pushing our capitalist culture towards crisis point. Corporations design rocks which fall only on members of the underclass; starvation is caused by food supplies being diverted for use in television cooking programmes. The responses to the various catastrophes are equally bizarre with a starving population being given smartphones to watch food being cooked or obese people selling slices of their bodies.

Parts of Escaped Alone remain obscure. There is no indication whether the cataclysms described by Mrs Jarrett have actually happened or why she alone remarks on them. The play may be an articulation of the anger which has built up in the apparently affable characters during their lifetimes (at one point Mrs Jarrett chants ‘’Terrible rage’’ over and over). Or perhaps the play reflects that a group of women being able to survive into old age in an aggressive society is just as remarkable as coping with the apocalypse. In any case the play is a pleasure to watch.

The staging for Escaped Alone – a group of people sitting and chatting is simple but static and not really appropriate for a theatre in the round like The Royal Exchange. Director Sarah Frankcom having the characters change seats gives the impression of time passing and the meeting taking place on different days which is contradicted by the closing line.

Frankcom makes excellent use of the resources at The Exchange for the second half of the double bill- members of the theatre’s Elders Company (which meets informally on the first and third Monday of the month) appear as representatives of different futures. Churchill’s parable on coming to terms with grief and unrealised hopes, What If If Only, has a close resemblance to A Christmas Carol and even has a gothic opening with clouds of dry ice. There is a sly humour; one of the supernatural visitors arrives carrying the weekly shop.

The bereavement suffered by grieving widow Someone (Danielle Henry) is so intense it conjures up a supernatural being. Future (Annette Badland) explains she represents a future which never happened but one in which Someone’s late husband survives. If, therefore, Future can be made a reality the husband will not have died. But there are other Futures which demand attention and Someone also encounters Present (Lamin Touray) who tries to reconcile her to the existing situation and a very self-assured Child (Bea Glancy) who is resolute in her conviction she is the Future that will come.

The sharp dialogue mixes political idealism with outright wishful thinking. Desperate to become reality Annette Badland explains she is the Future of both Equality and Cake. This contrasts with the raw staging of the play reflecting loss and emptiness- Someone addresses her remarks to a vacant chair while sorting through memorabilia of days gone by.

What If If Only is less challenging than the first half of the double bill but its bittersweet atmosphere is a fine conclusion to a stimulating, thought-provoking night at the theatre.

Runs until 8^th March 2025