ESCAPED ALONE & WHAT IF IF ONLY

About the show

A world-first pairing of two separate works from one of the world's greatest living playwrights. Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks directs What If If Only, the micro-meditation on grief and possibility; and Escaped Alone, a visionary play about afternoon tea and the apocalypse. An Obie Award-winner several times over, Caryl Churchill (Top Girls) is widely considered one of the world’s greatest living playwrights. In this world-first theatrical experience, Melbourne Theatre Company Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks directs two separate Caryl Churchill works: What If If Only, the micro-meditation on grief and possibility starring Alison Bell; and Escaped Alone, a visionary play starring Helen Morse, alongside Kate Hood, Debra Lawrance and Deidre Rubenstein, about afternoon tea and the apocalypse. In Escaped Alone, a woman joins her three neighbours for an afternoon of swapping memories and sharing secrets, in between the telling of catastrophic events, bleak but blackly humorous. In What If If Only, a partner laments their lost love and conjures up countless possible futures, with and without love. In both works, the characters’ hopes, fears and dreams are palpable, visceral and remarkable. Showcasing the dazzling alchemy of Churchill’s writing, these two short works are separate plays that share some deep thematic parallels. Their combination in Sarks’s hands promises a profound, surreal, funny and thrilling theatrical experience.