I am attempting to colonise the last frontier. Time, Elena, time. If we could inhabit different iterations of self, we could undo all the mistakes of the past. Don’t you see?

Hilary Fannin’s radical adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s classic 1905 dark comedy reworks the original text and draws it into the here and now. Children of the Sun is the story of a small family and their quixotic collection of acquaintances, entertaining and enraging each other while, unseen beyond their fragile walls, their world is being reshaped by unstoppable forces.

The play asks how we survive without the benefit of hindsight and whether science, art or love are capable of saving us from uncertainty and destruction.

Co-produced by Rough Magic and the Abbey Theatre, Children of the Sun premiered on the Abbey stage as part of Rough Magic’s 40th-anniversary year in April 2024. This edition was published to coincide with that production.