Is it rational to carry on living if the environment is in ruins and virtually everyone else is dead?  Does there come a point when the instinct to survive should be dismissed as a mere ‘stupid mechanism in the brain’?   Thorny questions such as these are raised in this apocalyptic two-hander, set in a near future where chemical warfare has poisoned the land and turned the rain to skin-searing acid.  The scene is a basement, where two women have come to hide from knife-wielding men who prowl above.  Kelly is a tearful, panicky teenager with an injured foot. It transpires that this is the basement of her father’s house. Ashley, somewhat older, is more robust, and shows little sympathy for Kelly’s anxiety and pain.  She takes charge, apparently knowing more than Kelly about the perils that await them ‘out there’. We learn that the two of them have only just met, Ashley having been an intended pick-up for casual sex by Kelly’s father, who encountered her at a petrol station. He has disappeared. There is no food or water, and their only light is provided by a torch and a lantern that they find in one of the many boxes scattered around the basement floor. So far, so grim.  There are moments of humour, but of the blackest kind.

Florence Espeut-Nickless portrays Kelly as a deeply traumatised girl who, in moments of greatest dread, recites the names of her dead classmates.  In contrast, Alison Fitzjohn powerfully conveys Ashley’s no-nonsense assertiveness and potential for violence.  Ashley is a more enigmatic and complex character than Kelly, having experienced adult life before the war destroyed everything. Both actors give brave, raw performances as these wary companions, thrown together by desperate circumstance.

Writer Charlotte Turner-McMullan has created an intriguing situation, and two interesting characters, but perhaps she could have given Kelly and Ashley a little more history.  It would give more emotional weight to their story if there was a greater sense of who they had once been. In one of the play’s most moving moments we do see a very brief glimpse of Ashley’s previous life as a wife and mother, and I would have liked more of that kind of writing. There are also some distractingly inconsistent features of life outside that basement. We learn that to be caught out in the rain is to be flayed alive, that murderous figures prowl the land seeking shelter, and that almost everyone is dead. Yet, apparently, a petrol station can still function, and there are references to some kinds of employment.  It is also a little surprising that, after five years of war, Kelly’s father has failed to stock his basement with food or water.

Chiara Tedeschi’s sound design, featuring muffled footsteps and half-heard voices, does much to create a sense of menace, and Jenny Roxburgh’s lighting is suitably sepulchral. The Coopers’ Loft may be perched at the very top of the Old Vic building, but with its heavy iron girders and dark wooden beams it makes for a convincing underground shelter. Ably directed by Alison Comley, Everyone Is Dead is an all-female production from Theatre West that effectively depicts how an environmental disaster can bring in its trail a total breakdown of social and moral norms.  If we see the consequences of an imagined chemical war as a metaphor for the ravages that could be wrought by climate change, then the warning is clear.   ★★★☆☆    Mike Whitton    17^th October 2019