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A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR This play, this writer, Alistair McDowall, has a trend of working with fantastic situations and weaving into them very human, relevant, and potently poignant social commentary. His plays hold up a mirror to society, as all theatre should, using these, at times, ridiculous settings. McDowall uses these extremes akin to how an absurdist play like Rhinoceros, or Act Without Words, or the dada antics of Ubu Roi functions: distancing us, the audience, through the lens of the ridicularity of the situations, so that we may observe the realities, reflections and relevancies in our own lives or political climate. Out of his plays, I found X to hold the most relevance, about how the modern world, our present, steals from us in subtle, hidden ways. They say:                                                                 Time is an apex predator…                                                                                         “...mighty time, the Great Destroyer of worlds.”

 

Well, the modern world and all of its distractions, and business, is like the Venus Flytrap, or Angler Fish, dangling all of our wants; our needs, in front of us, luring us in until we are caught within its tangled web of distractions and duties. Going about the task of untangling it, trying to find our way out from beneath its grasp - ignorant, for the most part, of the ticking clock - the passing of time.   It’s about time And the memories we hold onto Time we spend together Time we have Time we waste and regret later Time we wish we had Time running out Time stolen, taken from us with work and the hectic nature of everyday life…                                                              

   And…

               we don’t stop to spend it on the important things…                No, we never stop to…                                                                                   …the cruellest part of it is, we never, ever, realise until its                                                                                          … too late.

 

The memories we hold onto The ones we wish we had held onto                                   but we let slip                                                             And the ones we wish had made                                                                                                                        but didn’t.

In a moment, time becomes irrelevant all at once, when memories aren’t there, and can’t be made Or worse, being stuck in a milling maelstrom or maze of meilleur And we can’t go back. Time’s arrow, like a wind at our back, or worse yet, becalmed in a sea of solitude and silence.

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All you have left… all you can do is wait.

 

X isn’t just a sci-fi for the thrill of it, it’s an examination of all the things we leave behind.

Ashes to ashes… dust to dust…

For the Earth, and our awareness of the ticking doomsday clock.

For us, running around across planet, oblivious to our own doom until it knocks.

For them, the ones that we say goodbye to, and wish, even just for a second more.

 

Eventually, it comes for us… every one.

Enjoy every moment.

 

CHRIS JACKSON