Theatrical lecture Module

“FAR AWAY”

by Caryl Churchill

“Far Away” was written by Caryl Churchill in 2000, a British writer. We can guess from the information at the beginning of the play about where the play was presented, in the Royal Court Theatre.

There are three characters in this play. Joan, a girl, that at the start of the play was young and at the end she was older, i.e., during the play there were time jumps in which Joan grows up. She is very curious, for example on page 7 when she wants to go out to the darkness, “I wanted to see” and when she asks her aunt a lot of things that are related with what she saw through the window. Her aunt, Harper, is a pacific person as we can see at the same time Joan is asking, she is calming Joan down because she is asking for so many things that she should not know. The last character is Todd, a hat maker that works with Joan several years later. I think he is very polite and he likes talking about things.

The play is divided into three parts. In the first Joan is in her aunt’s home (Harper’s home) and she is going to sleep when she hears people screaming, I think she pops in through the window and sees her uncle with some people in a shed and a truck with people inside screaming. I think people are taken somewhere and those that are with Joan’s uncle are not taken. In the second part, some years later, Joan is with Tood in the hat industry, they make hats. This part was divided into days. There is a day that they make the hats in a different way than other days. On the fifth day some prisoners wear hats, the wearing of the hats means that they are going to die. In the third part, some years later too, Todd is staying with Harper talking about animals, wasps, butterflies, horses, cats, crocodiles, etc. In page 29 Harper talks about Joan: “We don’t know how long she’d been walking”. Where is she?, Harper and Todd gives us the answer, she is in the middle of a war: Harper: “You don’t go walking off in the middle of a war”, Todd: “You do if you’re escaping.”. They relate the animals with people that are in the war. We can check this on page 30. Then, Joan arrives and goes with Tood, it seems that he is her husband because Harper says: “What are you going to say when tou go back, you ran off to spend a day with your husband?”.

The space and the time are different. In the first part the space was Harper’s house and the time could be when Joan was younger, i.e., several years before. In the second part the space is the hat industry and the time I think can be only some years before and in the last part the space is Harper’s home too and time can be nowadays. We can find some time and space marginal notes at the beginning of the different parts of the play. For example in the start of the third part the writer tells us where the characters are: “Several years later, HARPER’s house, daytime”. Also we know that the action occurs during the day.

The language is easy to understand, only some words are difficult. Though I did not understand some parts of the play like the last part. There is something said about animals, why?. Does it have a relation with something or someone?. I do not understand.

To conclude I have to say that the play is very difficult to understand, for me, of course, I do not know the real meaning of it but I have done all that was in my hands to understand it. Nevertheless I have to say that it is easy to read. My opinion of this play is very confusing because I liked reading this play, but when I arrived at the end I wondered about the beginning and I have read some parts more than once. The most important thing that I have not understood is the presence of animals in the dialogues of the third part. Really I would like to understand it because it has things that interest me, like the first part when the people are in the lorry and screaming, I think it has a relation with war, escape, etc.