The Urmetazoan

The Urmetazoan description

The Urmetazoan is a new play about two sisters, a one-way trip into deep space, and the impossibility of saying goodbye.

Alice and Abigail have always been opposites. Alice has a Nobel Prize for Medicine; Abigail likes to get stoned on the sofa. Abigail is a homebody; Alice is preparing to leave the earth forever on a one-way mission into deep space. As the launch approaches and the two sisters rediscover the pleasure of being in each other's orbit, the goodbye they had both taken for granted becomes far harder than either of them expected.

The play receives its world premiere at Hampstead Theatre, playing in the Downstairs studio, the space the theatre reserves for new writing. Its title refers to the urmetazoan, the hypothetical common ancestor from which all animal life is descended. It is by Alex Rugman, an award-winning writer and co-artistic director of Freight Theatre, who is a graduate of Hampstead's INSPIRE programme for emerging playwrights. His earlier work includes How To Save A Rock at the Pleasance Theatre, Move Fast and Break Things at Camden People's Theatre and An Investigation at Peckham Fringe.

Anna Ledwich directs, returning to Hampstead Theatre where her credits include Bird Grove, The Billionaire Inside Your Head and the Olivier-nominated productions of Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds. The set and costume design is by Tomás Palmer, with lighting by Jonathan Chan and sound by Sarah Spencer.

Dorothea Myer-Bennett, whose credits include Glengarry Glen Ross at the Old Vic, plays Alice. Meghan Treadway, seen in Witness for the Prosecution at London County Hall, plays Abigail, and Ben Allen, who appeared in Folk at Hampstead Theatre, plays Will.

Suitable for ages 14 and up, it is a chamber piece for three actors about the distance between people who grew up in the same house. Book now for a new play about two sisters and the goodbye that comes with a one-way ticket.

Playing at Hampstead Theatre

Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London, NW3 3EU GB (venue info)

Directions