I first saw this play in Dublin in the summer of 2004. The only other play of Carol Churchill's I had seen was Cloud Nine. But this one blew me away. True, it is abstract and surreal, but just like subtext, what is under those strange hats and talks of "the darkness" and "the silence" choosing sides in the times of war, is very important to what is going on in our world today. Through simple language (the play only has one monologue and the time only spans an hour), images of love and war, innocence and torture, Carol Churchill shows us the worst of humanity in times of war. The workers in the hat factory, the little girl on the farm discovering what secrets can contain, the aunt who no longer cares for her family and only the "mission". All of these characters show us what can happen when we lose our humanity. I think that one of the very last lines of the play really says it all about war, changes in life, and even in Churchill plays: When you first step in, you don't know what's going to happen.