ESCAPED ALONE
Coronet Theatre
★★★★
“the cast deliver wonderful performances that transcend language”
Immediately following their acclaimed, short run of “Uccellini (Little Birds)”, the avant-garde ‘Lacasadargilla’ and ‘Teatro Piccolo’ are back at The Coronet Theatre with their unique adaptation of Caryl Churchill’s “Escaped Alone”. As soon as the houselights fade, and Alessandro Ferroni’s music and soundscape drift through the semi-darkness, we know what sort of ride we are in for. Mellow strings that sound as though they are written for an early television sitcom collapse into discordant and sinister drones.
We find ourselves in a back garden, where three unnamed women, of a certain age, are gossiping; watched over by a fourth from behind a bottle-green artificial hedge. The artifice of Marco Rossi and Francesca Sgariboldi’s set is a deliberate ploy to merge the realism and surrealism that Churchill has intertwined in her 2016 play. Touches of Scissorhands’ suburbia enhance the dream-like isolation. The characters are living within a fable that is, at once, comfortable yet disturbing.
“Escaped Alone” combines neighbourly chit-chat with visions of doom-laden horror. Three friends are gossiping when a fourth woman wanders through the gap in the hedgerow; uninvited but unapologetically pulling up a chair to join them for afternoon tea. At first, she just observes, enjoying the banal and oblique non-sequiturs that pepper the conversation. It is all quite absurd, until the outsider (Mrs Jarrett – the only named character in this interpretation) uses some of the many pregnant pauses to launch into a monologue describing an evolving apocalyptic scenario. Each becoming more surreal as time passes. It is as though she represents the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rolled into one eccentric pensioner. Meanwhile, the other three are wrapped up in their own concerns that are far from mundane. An exaggerated fear of cats competes with another’s anxiety and depression, while a husband killer sits in her deck chair sipping her tea. At one point they sing Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in unison.
Not quite Theatre of the Absurd, it is dangerously close. But it is ingeniously staged, with a collective eye on the humour that this company are adept at bringing to the foreground. Like with ‘Uccellini”, it is spoken in Italian with English surtitles, and similarly we are presented with the dilemma of when to read the text or to focus on the stage – it is difficult to do both simultaneously. A large video screen that intermittently projects capitalism mocking adverts, or multi-corporate film trailers (presumably for extra political comment) would be better used – although not as visually pleasing – for the surtitles.
Nevertheless, the cast deliver wonderful performances that transcend language. Their movement and mannerisms often convey the meaning and emotions. The anonymity of the characters illustrates the ensemble nature of the piece. Caterina Carpio, Tania Garribba, Arianna Gaudio and Alice Palazzi seem to have a connection that puts them one step ahead of each other. And ahead of us. It is sometimes difficult to follow these characters and discover where they are going. The latter stems from the writing which, despite being classic Churchill, is too disconnected. The performances, however, bring the strands together brilliantly with a warmth of personality that relishes eccentricity. Anna Missaglia’s costumes are a delightfully bizarre array of colour and style, as though plundered from a charity shop during a nervous breakdown. Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli and Alessandro Ferroni share the director’s chair again, creating magic from mayhem with their eye-catching tableaux.
Social commentary is largely lost in translation, but the theatricality and the mundanity blend beautifully to create another special night out, courtesy of ‘Lacasadargilla’ – in the equally special Italian Renaissance style surroundings of Notting Hill’s Coronet Theatre.
ESCAPED ALONE
Coronet Theatre
Reviewed on 6th May 2026
by Jonathan Evans
Photography by Masiar Pasquali
