Jordan Wright
October 5, 2019
Where will you be when the world comes to an end? Will you be sipping tea and nibbling on biscuits in a hydrangea-filled English garden? Will you notice the world’s decline outside your garden walls? Or will you be oblivious until it directly affects you? In a purposely discordant collection of conversations, four women gossip about their lives, most especially the foibles and failures of their absent acquaintances. They avoid discussions like the overarching collapse of the planet’s social and environmental systems and skirt around Vi’s six-year stretch in the penitentiary for the murder of her husband – it eventually comes up but only as a symptom of her social paralysis. Platitudes are offered up as effortlessly as teacup refills.
Sally’s daughter, Mrs. Jarrett, serves as narrator of Earth’s current state of anarchism and apocalypse. Her news updates announce all the latest disasters – widespread disease, floods, mudslides, pollution, tidal waves, domestic violence, starvation, refugee camps, and more – nothing that’s not reported in our everyday news feeds. Scenes toggle between the ladies nattering in non sequiturs and Mrs. Jarrett’s doomsday doses of reality. The women don’t hear her and don’t care. They have their own problems, picayune though they are. Sally is cat-phobic and Lena is agoraphobic and without purpose. Vi is wound up in her own malaise, and Mrs. Jarrett appears to have zero impact on the other ladies. They’d rather revisit the past and dance to Petula Clark or blame the whole thing on God’s revenge for sexual dysphoria. Notwithstanding the light-hearted conversations, we sense an undercurrent of depression and manic behavior.
A brief but notable reference to the Book of Job, “I only am escaped alone to tell thee”, serves to explain the play’s title. But who of these four will escape? Their survival is neither promised nor suggested. Legendary playwright Caryl Churchill (Cloud Nine, Top Girls) wrote Escaped Alone as a short but compelling drama about ordinary people living in extraordinary times – much like ours. It draws from the concept of British tea houses run by women for women who were free to discuss private matters apart from men. It later became a sanctuary in which the women’s suffragist movement blossomed. Expertly directed by Holly Twyford, it features a cast of highly respected, veteran actors.
Brigid Cleary as Lena, Catherine Flye as Vi, Helen Hedman as Sally, and Valerie Leonard as Mrs. Jarrett.
Scenic Design by Paige Hathaway, Costume Design by Alison Samantha Johnson, Lighting Design by Maria Shaplin, Sound Design by Victoria Deiorio.
Through November 3rd at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.sigtheatre.org.