Three women. One is swimming. She talks about her body. About her life. About all the things she has done and will no longer do. Because the world is ending, something she welcomes. A woman is sitting on a plane. She’s nervous. She’s waiting for the plane to crash, for a terrorist to pull a gun out, for a corpse to climb out of the hold and into the plane. A woman is in her kitchen. She is topping up glasses of champagne. Her guests are talking about golf and politics and the gender pay gap. Outside, trees are burning and birds are twittering. In her new play, British author Alice Birch propels the ‘faraway’ news of environmental catastrophes into her characters’ everyday lives as physical experiences. Internationally acclaimed stage director Katie Mitchell has developed a distinctive theatrical technique called ‘live cinema’ in which theatre and film are very closely intermeshed. For many years now she has been exploring the theme of climate change in her stage productions. This premiere of 2020 or The End is her fifth collaboration with Alice Birch.