‘Sheer theatrical wonder’: WHAT IF IF ONLY — Royal Court ★★★★

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

WHAT IF IF ONLY – how many times must that have been said of a best beloved who has died. If only I had, what if this or that hadn’t happened?
Caryl Churchill back at the Royal Court, Linda Bassett – with John Heffernan and in the hands of James Macdonald – back at the Court.

My first visit there in about two years. It felt so strange. And yet the same.
And Caryl’s play, written a year before her best beloved died, takes no prisoners. 17 minutes only in length, situated in Miriam Buether’s white muslin textured box – a room with no features, Heffernan, a glass of red wine before him, wracked in sorrow – tells of grief and hope and possibility. And annihilation. Personal and environmental.

Churchill has never been one for convention; she breaks ground all the time. And you will be hard put to extract total comprehension at one sitting. It is absurdism, abstraction – and yet in the hands of Linda Bassett – it is a glorious cloudburst of hope.

There is a moment of sheer theatrical wonder eclipsing all the months of inaction as she enters. The beam that spreads over her face would lift any soul to heaven. She speaks of possibilities, of futures, of ghosts, of being made `to happen’.

Heffernan’s grieving partner could make her `happen’, could make a future, make her solid – but he does not know how. Do we? do we know how to save our planet? Could we have done things differently?

Unpeel What If If Only for yourself, and its enigmatic possibilities. Another director might have made some of it more tangible, `realistic’. Macdonald – and I suspect Churchill herself – will have none of it. Work it, work it out…but see that beam and know all will be well.

Cast:
Linda Bassett
John Heffernan
Jasmine Nyenya or Samir Simon-Keegan

Director: James Macdonald
Designer: Miriam Buether
LightingDesigner: Prema Mehta
Sound Designer: Christopher Shutt
Assistant Director: Grace Duggan
Video Content: Isaac Madge

Casting Director: Amy Ball
Lighting Supervisor: Cat Roberts
Sound Supervisor: David McSeveney

Lead Producer: Catherine Thornborrow
A Royal Court production

World premiere of What If If Only at Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London on Sept 28, 2021

Review published on this site, Oct 4, 2021

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Carole Woddis

Carole Woddis has been a theatre journalist and critic for over 30 years. She was London reviewer and feature writer for Glasgow’s The Herald for 12 years and for many other newspapers and magazines. She has contributed to other websites including The Arts Desk, Reviews Gate and London Grip and now blogs independently at woddisreviews.org.uk. Carole is also the author of: The Bloomsbury Theatre Guide with Trevor T Griffiths; a collection of interviews with actresses, Sheer Bloody Magic (Virago), and Faber & Faber’s Pocket Guide to 20th Century Drama with Stephen Unwin. For ten years, she was a Visiting Tutor in Journalism at Goldsmiths College and for three years with City University. Earlier in her career, she worked with the RSC, National Theatre, Round House and Royal Ballet as a publicist and as an administrator for other theatre and dance organisations.