Envisioning Identity: Theatrical and Political Innovations in Caryl Churchill's Plays

Caryl Churchill, a contemporary British playwright and declared socialist feminist, combines theatrical inventiveness with social critique in her plays. Churchill consistently relates to political ideas in theatrical terms. This study offers a close reading of Churchill’s most representative works, Cloud Nine (1979) and Top Girls (1982), detailing the development of her dramatic craft. In Cloud Nine and Top Girls, Churchill examines political structures through a conscious evaluation of traditional theatre structure. In particular, Churchill finds Brechtian epic theatre’s politics invaluable to her socialist feminist dramaturgy. Detailed analysis of the two works enables us to determine the extent to which Churchill applies epic techniques to a politics that incorporates various concerns of gender, race, sexual orientation, and class.

Chapter One discusses Cloud Nine. In this play, Churchill shows her effective application of Brechtian epic theatre. In particular, she uses cross-casting and double-casting as an alienation effect in the mode of Brechtian theatre. Through these devices Churchill explores the artificiality of power structures, especially in patriarchal society. Moreover, by using these devices, Churchill makes a link between “playing a role” in theatre and “playing a role” in society. Churchill connects the way in which an actor represents his or her role in the audience to the way in which an individual represents a self to society. In Cloud Nine theatrical role-playing becomes a fundamental mode of action to suggest political role-playing as a vehicle for the content of social relations.

Chapter Two examines Top Girls. In this play Churchill continues and extends her interests, including issues of patriarchy, social structure, and economic changes. Churchill builds up theatrical techniques from both Brechtian epic theatre and personal areas of theatre, reshapes traditional devices, and melds them into an original style. Churchill uses Brechtian historicization to analyze the relationship between women at different social positions through history. Moreover, by using a double-casting device, Churchill examines the different class consciousnesses and conflicts that characterize women in different moments of capitalism. By examining these two works, this study explores the interdependence of the theatrical and political in Churchill’s new grammar of discussing, viewing, and writing plays.