Too Much Future: AND…AND…AND

And… And… And is a tidy new coming-of-age play by Isla Cowan that tucks away anxieties about the future in its admitted desire to satisfy the audience with resolution.

Cassie (Caroline McKeown) and Claire (Tiana Milne-Wilson) spend their weekends picking plastic litter from their local beach. Volunteering looks good on Cassie’s college applications, and the excuse to hang around and eat chips with her busy best friend is enough for Claire. Cassie, however, grows disturbed by the Sisphean task. The plastic doesn’t just accumulate; it’s everywhere. It’s in the sand, in her skin, in the water, blood, and air. It’s in their bedrooms, school, and clothes smartly communicated by Katie Innes’ interchangeable set and costumes. And when the girls look out toward the horizon where their ships are meant to come in — Cassie’s degree in environmental law and Claire’s bohemia in New York — they see a blaze instead. It’s the plastic plant Ikos. The enemy. Rage.

Each morning, Groundhog Day news cycles concerning biblical levels of catastrophe — flooding, fires, and drought — bombard the girls on TikTok, Instagram, BBC and Sky News. It dulls Claire’s senses, washing over her as she hits snooze. Cassie, however, feels everything. Her deep sense of personal responsibility for the fate of the world descends into Lady Macbethean levels of obsessive guilt. She’s not showering; not sleeping…