Subject: # 14227 Teatro Inglés Siglos XIX y XX Grupo A

Author: Caryl Churchill

Play: Far Away

Subtitle: N/A

Publisher: N/A

Date and place are unavailable

Joan is a fighter girl, she has no fear and wants to change things, reveal what is hidden and is as courageous to be able to manage to achieve what she aims. Harper, her aunt, is a responsible wise woman who knows what the dangers are in doing certain things. Todd is a fighter young man, as Joan is, but not that much. He, like Joan, is a hat maker, but much more experienced. However, we are not able to speak much about the characters as we have little information about them.

The plot is divided in three parts. The first one, is where Joan is staying at her aunt’s house. There, she discovers a social event going on at that place, where people are running away from who wants to hunt them. Later, at the second part, we see Joan and Todd working as hat makers, talking about the corruption existing at the management level of the firm, they are too low paid, about the dangers of revealing the truth and his having an ace up his sleeve. At the final part, there seems to be a war, every kind of being is on one of both sides of the struggle, all the nations are involved, all the jobs, all the animals. Murders are everywhere. In this part, Todd and Joan are married, and as it was said before, Joan manages to achieve what she wants, to arrive to her aunt’s house, and she has the courage to kill two cats and a child under five, she is involved in the war, too. This division can be interpreted as a metaphor, related with how the violence in human history has evolved and could evolve in the future. First, violence is more concrete, is physical, blood and blows, moving from one city to another, this could be related to the 18th and 19th centuries.. Later, this violence is much more subtle at the second part, it affects the human rights, the low wages and the unjustified sackings. This seems to match with the present, 20th and 21th centuries. The final part, where there is a war in which everything is against everything, every nation, every being, violence is everywhere, one must walk on the street hiding from the other side, risking one’s life.

The play occupies two places: Joan’s aunt’s house and the hat maker office. None of them is of importance for the plot of the play, except for the fact that, at the third part of the story, the aunt’s house can be considered a place where one can hide from the enemies of the war. The time, however, is of major signification, as each part of the play represents a different time, being parts of the same metaphor, which has already been explained.