Caryl Churchill's play Escaped Alone (2016) is a conversation between four women in their seventies about today's world and its real and imagined threats. Churchill's play is particularly relevant in today's world due to its themes related to contemporary fears: climate crisis, social isolation, political and psychological instability. The play interweaves everyday conversations with apocalyptic monologues depicting a dystopian future dominated by ecological catastrophes, food shortages and societal collapse. The play focuses on the experiences of older women - a demographic group that is often marginalized in both theatre and media. Their conversations, full of humor and warmth, contrast with the dark monologues, emphasizing the importance of community in the face of crisis.

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The fragmented, almost absurd structure of the work is reminiscent of how we consume information today - through short messages, social networks, hearsay. The work criticizes the gap between everyday life and the global crisis – people continue to live normally, although everything around them is collapsing. The play will be professionally translated into Lithuanian and staged for the first time at the Lithuanian Theatre.

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“Although we constantly strive for happiness, prosperity, a successful, healthy and meaningful life, people often tend to create apocalyptic, pessimistic scenarios of the world. Are these conflicts and fears encoded in the genes of humanity? Maybe they are the foundations of Christian, maybe Hellenistic culture? Or maybe we create apocalyptic scenarios out of boredom,” asks the director of the play A. Areima. In difficult times for Lithuania and the world – a tense geopolitical situation, war, global warming, pollution, addiction to the digital world – the director chooses to talk about the difficulties in a cartoonish way, through the prism of humor, stepping back and looking at himself from the outside. The performance will invite the audience to reflect on how they respond to crises – through ignoring, humor, conversation, or perhaps active action. In an era of political instability and social exclusion, this work will become a powerful and relevant reflection on contemporary life.

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