The world has descended into total warfare. “Everything’s been recruited,” babies and dentists have long since taken sides. Political prisoners march to their deaths wearing hats shaped like animals.

Caryl Churchill titles her apocalyptic vision of humanity’s fate “Far Away,” though it quickly becomes apparent we’re not meant to believe it’s so distant.

Written in 2000, the play preceded the excesses of the war on terror, but it’s proven chillingly prophetic of a world in which children wage war, women strap bombs to themselves, and the bastion of democracy engages in practices its own attorney general-designate has declared torture.

Churchill, whose “Serious Money” won the 1987 Olivier Award for Best New Play, is one of the finest dramatists alive today and unabashedly political. Her masterpieces, “Top Girls” and “Cloud Nine,” dealt with feminism, sexuality, and empire. “Far Away” continues her activism and moves it into the realm of abstractness and poetry.

It takes a few reads to understand what the hell she’s talking about and a lot more to appreciate the full brilliance of her dystopia, but it’s a short play and well-worth the effort. I’ve been in the play and I still learn something every time I read it.

If it’s the responsibility of art to teach us about the world, it’s ours to heed its lessons. Caryl Churchill has warned us of what we may become. Let’s see if we can do something about it.

-Nathaniel French

Opinion Editor