Retro Causality by Lucy Stepan

Union Theatre 2025, written by Lucy Stepan & produced by StageBase Productions

Kitchen-sink meets quantum mechanics. In a small village in South Yorkshire, Katherine tries to break free of her family curse.

Retro Causality is a play about generational trauma. An unassuming family in a small South Yorkshire village that can’t seem to escape the cycle of violence and what can happen when we begin to understand the past.

We pull apart Katherine’s family, like splitting the atom, delving deeper into their history to try and find the heart of the problem. Part kitchen-sink drama, part quantum mechanics; the story travels through time and parallel universes to try and explain why our families have so much influence over how our lives pan out, what happens when we are honest about the darker parts of our family histories and how breaking these cycles can feel like the end of the world.