'Anyone can get through the first half. You start a life. You finish it. You don't bail out at the crossroads because you don't like the scenery.'

In Woman and Scarecrow the title characters, ‘in exile from the best of themselves’, trade litanies of recriminations as they mourn their capacity to love.

This deathbed drama pitches old friends and battle-weary foes against each other in a sustained howl against ‘the first law. This world’s job is to take everything from you. Yours is not to let it.’ It hinges on the Woman’s last request, to return west where she might find ‘some kind of miracle’, that moment of grace in which ‘anything can happen’.

Her latest play, a Royal Court production, is a brave addition to Marina Carr’s extraordinary, passionate art.