"Far Away," at Live Arts, is one of those plays: the type of play that prompts you to glance at other audience members during the show to see if they're as confused as you are. Caryl Churchill's drama about the horrors of war is certainly more thought-provoking than enjoyable. Yet this intellectualism asks the audience to consider the play's message: All war is hell.
Playwright Churchill is known for her extremely political works. Although "Far Away" was first produced in 2000, the message against the atrocities committed in war is applicable to many conflicts in history.
The play's opening scene shows the protagonist, Joan, as a young girl who discovers that her aunt and uncle are sheltering people who they claim to be saving from persecution. But, when Joan discovers blood near where the people are staying and sees her uncle abusing some of them, she must question whether they truly are the rescuers or persecutors. Joan is asked not to tell anyone about what she has seen.
The audience is then transported to a hat factory several years into the future. Joan is now a grown woman, and the conversations she has with Todd, her co-milliner, about the corruption of the hat-making industry serve as a broader metaphor in the play. A "parade" of faceless models wearing hats follows, and the audience learns that the "best hat" in the parade will be saved in a museum, while the others will be burned with the bodies of the models, which represent prisoners of war.
The final scene returns to the living room of the aunt and uncle: All the characters have aged, Joan is a grown woman and the family is fighting a revolution against an unknown enemy. In their passion for their cause, Joan's relatives even claim animals and the elements of the universe have joined forces with enemy nations against them. Though this juxtaposition seems ridiculous, it is part of the play's statement about the senselessness of war.
The plot is as difficult to follow on paper as it is on the stage. The scenes seemingly have very little to do with each other until the war is explained at the end. Even the fact that the young girl in the beginning and the woman in the rest of the play are the same person is concealed for most of the play. Although the final scene helped to connect much of the preceding story, the play is still open ended and the audience is left with many questions.
The play's minimalist sets work well on the black box stage and are not highly suggestive -- they contribute well to the universality of the action. The use of black in the parade scene's costuming highlights the absurdly bright hats, supplementing the irony of the fancy accessories being used in a prison camp.
During this scene, the prisoners have their faces covered and are dressed in shrouds that carry references to the recent photographs of the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners by American soldiers in Iraq. While allusions such as these help the message of the play to resonant sharply, this scene was a blemish on Betsy Rudelich Tucker's otherwise well done direction. The hat parade drags on longer than is necessary for the audience to understand its morbidity and absurdity, with some audience members falling asleep.
Analyzing the acting quality in political theatre is difficult because these playwrights are more interested in making the audience think about significance than in absorbing them in an alternate universe. Believability of the actors in their roles, however, is still important. None of the actors in "Far Away" reach the necessary level of naturalness. Maura Malloy seems forced as the older Joan. Bob Dorsey's portrayal of Todd, the revolutionary hat maker, is probably the most believable, but is still not particularly memorable. In fact, the actors' performances often seemed so scripted that this may have been an intentional technique.
Live Arts' "Far Away" is an anti-war allegory with relevance to current and historical events, but its obscure message will not likely win over any war hawks. The play would be prime for a pacifist who enjoys abstract symbolism, or for anyone willing to be challenged by theater. Otherwise, check out another production, as this play is not for everyone.
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