Caryl Churchill’s 21st Century Poetics: Theatre Form and Feminism from Far Away to Ding Dong the Wicked
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Harry Derbyshire
Abstract
This article considers the six plays written by Caryl Churchill between 2000 and 2012 (Far Away, A Number, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Seven Jewish Children, Love and Information and Ding Dong the Wicked) in relation to the vision of feminist theatre offered in Sue-Ellen Case’s “Towards a New Poetics,” the final chapter of her 1988 study Feminism and Theatre. It thereby offers an assessment of how far Churchill’s work in the ‘post-feminist’ period accords with or deviates from an earlier feminist agenda, one that proposed to decouple theatre form from patriarchy by re-making it from scratch. It is argued that Churchill’s work during this period, while no longer explicitly feminist in intent, nonetheless contains and expresses – both in its thematic concerns and its formal properties – the feminist “residue” that has been described by Janelle Reinelt. The body of the discussion offers a consideration of the plays in relation to the four main tenets of feminist theatre as envisaged by Case: breaking with realism; constructing woman as subject; deviating from linearity; and offering multiple and ambiguous meanings. The argument concludes by suggesting that Churchill’s widespread influence on contemporary British playwriting can be seen in part as the influence of the kind of feminist thinking exemplified by Case’s “new poetics.”
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© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Spectatorship in the Theatre, the Cinema and Photography
- People, Places & Things: Addiction, Identity and Performance
- Safe Distance, Dark Tourism, and Ambivalent Spatial Relation in Gillian Plowman’s Yours Abundantly, From Zimbabwe, and Christine Evans’s Trojan Barbie
- Hell and Redemption in Greig Coetzee’s Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny
- The Messy Business of Art, Research, and Collaboration: Audience Engagement in Home/Less/Mess
- “A community of storytellers and translators”: Ubu and the Truth Commission
- Dismantling Recognition: Reading Isolation in The Goat
- Caryl Churchill’s 21st Century Poetics: Theatre Form and Feminism from Far Away to Ding Dong the Wicked
- “Opera Singing Interrupted”: Simon Stephens’s Carmen Disruption
- Reviews
- Yvette Hutchison. South African Performance and Archives of Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, xii + 238pp., £65 (hardback).
- Claudia Georgi. Liveness on Stage: Intermedial Challenges in Contemporary British Theatre and Performance. CDE Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014, vii + 274 pp., $140.00 (hardback), $140.00 (PDF ebook).
- Faedra Chatard Carpenter. Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014, ix + 299 pp., $80.00 (hardcover), $34.95 (paperback and PDF ebook). Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014, ix + 279 pp., $89.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback).
- Piotr Woycicki. Post-Cinematic Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, x + 268 pp., £55.00.
- Patrick Duggan and Victor Ukaegbu, eds. Reverberations Across Small-Scale British Theatre: Politics, Aesthetics and Form. Bristol: Intellect, 2013, 250 pp., £35.00 (hardback).
- Ramón H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young, eds. Performance in the Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xii + 283 pp., £ 18,99.
- Marlis Schweitzer and Joanne Zerdy, eds. Performing Objects & Theatrical Things. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xv +264 pp. £ 55.00 (hardback).
- Joanne Tompkins. Theatre’s Heterotopias: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xi + 231 pp., €85,59 (hardback), €66,99 (PDF ebook).
- Rustom Bharucha. Terror and Performance. London: Routledge, 2014, xvii + 236 pp., $ 130.00 (hardback), $ 49.95 (paperback).
- Franziska Bergmann. Die Möglichkeit, dass alles auch ganz anders sein könnte: Geschlechterverfremdungen in zeitgenössischen Theatertexten. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2015, 347 pp., € 48.00.
- Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon, eds. Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013, xiv + 274 pp., $95.00 (paperback). Peter Lichtenfels, and John Rouse, eds. Performance, Politics and Activism. Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxiv + 299 pp., $35.00 (hardcover).
- Margaret Inchley. Voice and New Writing, 1997 – 2000: Articulating the Demos. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 204 pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.25 (PDF ebook).
- David Ian Rabey. The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015, 225 pp., £17.99 (paperback).
- David Dean, Yana Meerzon, and Kathryn Prince, eds. History, Memory, Performance. Studies in International Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, xii + 312 pp., £55.00 (hardback). Bryoni Trezise. Performing Feeling in Cultures of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, x + 216 pp., £55.00 (hardback).
- Tom Maguire. Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. vii +216pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.00 (PDF ebook).
- Christopher Collins and Mary P. Caulfield, eds. Ireland, Memory and Performing the Historical Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xiv + 244 pp., £58.00 (hardback), £45.99 (PDF ebook).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Spectatorship in the Theatre, the Cinema and Photography
- People, Places & Things: Addiction, Identity and Performance
- Safe Distance, Dark Tourism, and Ambivalent Spatial Relation in Gillian Plowman’s Yours Abundantly, From Zimbabwe, and Christine Evans’s Trojan Barbie
- Hell and Redemption in Greig Coetzee’s Johnny Boskak is Feeling Funny
- The Messy Business of Art, Research, and Collaboration: Audience Engagement in Home/Less/Mess
- “A community of storytellers and translators”: Ubu and the Truth Commission
- Dismantling Recognition: Reading Isolation in The Goat
- Caryl Churchill’s 21st Century Poetics: Theatre Form and Feminism from Far Away to Ding Dong the Wicked
- “Opera Singing Interrupted”: Simon Stephens’s Carmen Disruption
- Reviews
- Yvette Hutchison. South African Performance and Archives of Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, xii + 238pp., £65 (hardback).
- Claudia Georgi. Liveness on Stage: Intermedial Challenges in Contemporary British Theatre and Performance. CDE Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014, vii + 274 pp., $140.00 (hardback), $140.00 (PDF ebook).
- Faedra Chatard Carpenter. Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014, ix + 299 pp., $80.00 (hardcover), $34.95 (paperback and PDF ebook). Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds. Black Performance Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014, ix + 279 pp., $89.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback).
- Piotr Woycicki. Post-Cinematic Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, x + 268 pp., £55.00.
- Patrick Duggan and Victor Ukaegbu, eds. Reverberations Across Small-Scale British Theatre: Politics, Aesthetics and Form. Bristol: Intellect, 2013, 250 pp., £35.00 (hardback).
- Ramón H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young, eds. Performance in the Borderlands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xii + 283 pp., £ 18,99.
- Marlis Schweitzer and Joanne Zerdy, eds. Performing Objects & Theatrical Things. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xv +264 pp. £ 55.00 (hardback).
- Joanne Tompkins. Theatre’s Heterotopias: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xi + 231 pp., €85,59 (hardback), €66,99 (PDF ebook).
- Rustom Bharucha. Terror and Performance. London: Routledge, 2014, xvii + 236 pp., $ 130.00 (hardback), $ 49.95 (paperback).
- Franziska Bergmann. Die Möglichkeit, dass alles auch ganz anders sein könnte: Geschlechterverfremdungen in zeitgenössischen Theatertexten. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2015, 347 pp., € 48.00.
- Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon, eds. Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013, xiv + 274 pp., $95.00 (paperback). Peter Lichtenfels, and John Rouse, eds. Performance, Politics and Activism. Baskingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xxiv + 299 pp., $35.00 (hardcover).
- Margaret Inchley. Voice and New Writing, 1997 – 2000: Articulating the Demos. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, vii + 204 pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.25 (PDF ebook).
- David Ian Rabey. The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015, 225 pp., £17.99 (paperback).
- David Dean, Yana Meerzon, and Kathryn Prince, eds. History, Memory, Performance. Studies in International Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, xii + 312 pp., £55.00 (hardback). Bryoni Trezise. Performing Feeling in Cultures of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015, x + 216 pp., £55.00 (hardback).
- Tom Maguire. Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. vii +216pp., £55.00 (hardback), £55.00 (PDF ebook).
- Christopher Collins and Mary P. Caulfield, eds. Ireland, Memory and Performing the Historical Imagination. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, xiv + 244 pp., £58.00 (hardback), £45.99 (PDF ebook).
