About the Play:

Far Away is a full-length drama by Caryl Churchill. Cloaked in complacency, Far Away sinks the audience into a dystopian future begging the question: where do you stand? A surreal fable set in a chilling world where everyone, and indeed everything, is at war with each other. It's an eerie echo of the war that is being raged every day on social media.

Far Away is an hour long futuristic nightmare that envisions a world where the promise of violence broods and nothing is to be trusted. Written by the one of the UK's leading dramatists, this brilliant and unsettling work consists of three brief scenes. In the first, a young girl spending her first night in her new guardian's house witnesses a bloody slaughter. Next, the girl, now grown, is spending her first day working in a hat factory. There, she and a young man concoct funny and elaborate hats that are to be worn for a horrific purpose. In the final scene, the boy and girl, now wed, are seeking refuge from a global conflict even the animals are on one side or another.

Far Away premiered at London's Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in 2000 and in the West End in 2001.

Cast: 3 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Ravishing, deeply disturbing .... Has the picturesque form and gentle rhythms of a fairy tale. There is an uncommon density and sureness of purpose.... Each carefully chosen detail seems to vibrate with unsettled depths. And each summons anxieties both primal and mercilessly particular to the times in which we live.... With each new play, Ms. Churchill seems to come up with new rhythms and language to match, in exhilarating theatrical terms, what are scarcely trivial subjects." — The New York Times

"Caryl Churchill was expected to produce something explosive in Far Away, but... she has exceeded the critics' highest expectations." — The Observer

"You know you are in the hands of a master." — The Sunday Telegraph

About the Author:

Caryl Churchill is widely recognized as one of the UK's leading playwrights. She was born in London and after the Second World War her family emigrated to Montreal in Canada. She returned to England to attend Oxford University and graduated with a degree in English Literature. One of the most respected dramatists in the English-speaking world, she is an internationally known playwright whose work has been given major international theatrical awards throughout the world.