‘Many plays confront death. A few deal with the process of dying. Caryl Churchill’s new work manages, in 45 minutes, to encompass both. It not only confirms her ability to experiment with dramatic form but, more importantly, acts as a chilling reminder of our own mortality. While initially it seems slight, I find it’s grown steadily in the mind since I read it.
‘Like Churchill’s more overtly political Far Away (2000), it comes in three distinct, but cunningly linked, segments. In the first part, which gives the play its title, we watch a group of assorted guests reminiscing at an old man’s funeral. A picture gradually emerges of a cat-loving, much-married leftie who could be contentious or kind according to circumstance. This is just the kind of random chat you might hear at any funeral but what is noticeable is the guests’ self-preoccupation and the real dramatic shock comes when, wineglass in hand, they break the fourth wall to announce the precise details of their own deaths.
‘In the second, more daring section, titled After, Churchill projects us into the darkened world of the dead man. Patrick Godfrey, white-bearded and bewildered, delivers an extraordinary monologue in which the undiscovered country contains elements of classical, Christian and Coptic mythology. Behind it all lies a yearning for a return in any available form, whether human or animal, just to re-experience life. But although it’s a powerful speech, it lacks the poetic vision of a Shakespeare or Dante. When Claudio in Measure for Measure imagines “thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice” or Dante’s narrator sees hypocrites tormented by the weight of leaden cloaks, one gets a graphic image of the terrors of the afterworld.
‘But it is Churchill’s third section, Getting There, that is both the most testing and humane. It is an entirely wordless sequence in which an old man (Godfrey again) is levered from his bed to be divested of his pyjamas and dressed in shirt, trousers, socks and shoes by a loving carer. Once this is completed he moves, with the aid of a walking-frame, to a nearby chair. After a few moments, the carer undresses him again in preparation for his return to bed. This process, which poignantly captures the ritual humiliations of sickness and age, is repeated several times over until the light slowly fades. If I hadn’t been told otherwise, I would have assumed this was a piece by Samuel Beckett, the poet of terminal stages.
‘I would readily admit that death has more potency in a play like the medieval Everyman or a poem like Dante’s Inferno, which rest on the belief that earthly sin carries with it the prospect of divine punishment. But what Churchill has written is a striking memento mori for an age without faith; and although her play is brief, that in itself evokes the idea that we are here for a short time and then are suddenly gone.’ — Michael Billington
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Further
Caryl Churchill @ Wikipedia
Caryl Churchill @ Nick Hern Books
Telling feminist tales: Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill 2 goodreads
CARYL CHURCHILL AND THE DRAMA OF TERRORS
The Dramas of Caryl Churchill: The Politics of Possibility
Envisioning Identity: Theatrical and Political Innovations in Caryl Churchill’s Plays
Caryl Churchill and more things in heaven and earth
Book: ‘Churchill’s Socialism: Political Resistance in the Plays of Caryl Churchill’
Caryl Churchill – the ‘Picasso’ of Modern British Theatre
Caryl Churchill: Revolutionizing Form & Content
Caryl Churchill’s Prophetic Drama
Caryl Churchill Knows How to Do Things with Words
‘A writer of protean gifts’
Caryl Churchill at 80 – celebrating UK theatre’s ‘ultimate playwright’
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Extra
Playwright Caryl Churchill visits the West Bank
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No Interview
‘Since the death of JD Salinger, one of my biggest regrets as an interviewer is that Caryl Churchill declines to speak publicly about her work. It’s a resolution she has stuck to through the quarter century in which she has established herself as one of theatre’s most innovative and provocative dramatists.’ — Mark Lawson, The Guardian
‘On a recent trip to London, I attempted to arrange an interview with Caryl Churchill, who alongside Tom Stoppard is considered the greatest living English playwright. I didn’t expect to get an answer (Ms. Churchill hasn’t granted a real interview since the 1990s) and indeed, I did not get one. Trying to obtain an audience with her is like trying to obtain one with Thomas Pynchon or Cormac McCarthy. She maintains a Sphinx-like silence.’ — Dwight Garner, NYT
‘Two things are frequently said about Caryl Churchill: that she is the greatest playwright alive, and that she is one of the most elusive. While she occasionally discusses her work with researchers and fellow theatre-makers, she has not granted an interview to a major newspaper since the nineteen-nineties; her communications with the press are generally restricted to letters to the editor on political causes.’ — Andrew Dickson, The New Yorker
As Churchill told The Guardian in 1972, “Radio is good because it makes you precise. Then there’s the freedom. You can do almost anything in a radio play.”
In a 1987 interview with The New York Times, she explained, “I was fed up with the situation I found myself in in the 1960’s. I didn’t like being a barrister’s wife and going out to dinner with other professional people and dealing with middle-class life. It seemed claustrophobic. Having started off with undefined idealistic assumptions about the kind of life we could lead, we had drifted into something quite conventional and middle class and boring. By the mid-60’s, I had this gloomy feeling that when the Revolution came, I would be swept away.”
When she was asked in an interview what kind of society she would like to live in, she replied, “I would like to live in a society that is decentralized, nonauthoritarian, nonsexist-a society where people can be in touch with their feelings and in control of their lives.” When pressed for a political theory, she responded, “I combine a fairly strong commitment-an antipathy for capitalism-with a fairly wobbly theoretic grasp.”
Overlapping within the language of her play Top Girls are Churchill’s feminist agendas, as she explained in an interview with Emily Mann: “What I was intending to do was make it first look as though it was celebrating the achievements of women then – by showing the main character Marlene, being successful in a very competitive, destructive, capitalist way – ask, what kind of achievement is that? The idea was that it would start out looking like a feminist play and turn into a socialist one, as well.”
As Churchill once recalled, “I didn’t really feel a part of what was happening in the sixties. During that time I felt isolated. I had small children and was having miscarriages. It was an extremely solitary life. What politicised me was being discontent with my own way of life—of being a barrister’s wife and just being at home.”
Having begun writing short stories as a schoolgirl, Churchill would spend one summer helping to paint sets for a summer theater, but she did not “put the two things together”—writing and the stage—until her studies at Oxford and exposure to the works of Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, T. S. Eliot, and Bertolt Brecht, all of whom she has acknowledged as important influences. She wrote her first play in response to a friend’s need for something to direct. “It was a turning point,” as she recalled. “I realized I preferred things as plays. It has something to do with . . . liking things actually happening.”
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Book
Caryl Churchill Here We Go
Nick Kern Books
‘A funeral party for a man with an adventurous past and a ginger cat that needs a home.
‘Where is he now? Is his heart lighter than a feather? How did he die? And what happens to his friends?
‘Here We Go by Caryl Churchill is a short play about dying. It premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2015, in a production directed by Dominic Cooke.’ — Nick Kern Books
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The play
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p.s. Hey. ** Tea, Hi, Tea. You could see the hate in its eyes. And the hate seemed complicated. I used to say my favorite animal is the giraffe, and I’ve never really known why, and I guess maybe it still is. Giraffes seem cool and nice, but they also seem like a creature you would imagine during a bad drug trip or something. How are you (doing)? ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’ve never scuba dived. Have you? I think I’d like to. I think you’re right that the electric ones are the zombies, but I don’t know why. Hm. Ha ha, love is going to be a billionaire from that invention. Strange that no company has ever offered that at least as a Halloween goodie. Love being voted the greatest extreme death metal band in recorded history even though he’s not a band, G. ** Misanthrope, Thank you, G., that’s very heartening to hear. If TC actually eats someone in that movie let me know because I might watch it on plane flight maybe. My day’s largely preparatory re: trip. Just to let you know, due to the tightness of time before I fly to LA on Monday morning and the blog’s consequent impending vacation, I’m pretty sure the Joe post, which I greatly appreciate and look forward to, will have to wait to launch once the blog restarts in mid-November. I hope that’s okay. ** David Ehrenstein, I know there must be some poetic connection between ‘Ohio’ and Paul’s post, but I’m not coffee-d up enough to figure it out. Which is not a bad thing, mind you. ** Jeff J, I dug it, indeed! You already have a few more EPs coming? You guys are practically Pollardian. Patrick Lannan, who started the foundation, was equally into literature and art, and funded many things/people in both areas, but it seems his kids who just took over are not enamoured of literature, and that’s basically the sadly simple story, I think. But I’ll ask Michael more precisely when I see him in LA. ** tomk, Hi, Tom! I hope your head is lighter and better. ** Damien Ark, Hi, bud, and thanks. That house in your old neighbourhood sounds exciting, obviously. Redmond, Oregon: I’ll do a google street view thing and see what you’re saddled with. Guess what? You do have a haunted house attraction there, and people seem to like it even: ScareGrounds Haunted Attractions, 120 SW Glacier Ave, Redmond, OR 97756. Website. Check it out and let me know. I hope the confusion around your book parts like the Red Sea and that sort of thing. ** Bill, Howdy, Bill. Thank you, and thank you again. That makes sense: the Killian comparison, yeah. I think they might’ve even collaborated on a story once. What else is new? ** Sypha, High five. ** _Black_Acrylic, Good god, not again. I ‘pray’ this is a blip and the very last one. ** Jamie, Hi, Jamie. I’m right as rain, whatever that means. It was very awesome to see you. I’m glad the Joan Mitchell show won its day, if it did. What now re: you? My Wednesday was just getting my head around what I need to do before I leave and, uh, having the hiccups for three hours, and, uh, … I think that’s sadly the entirety. Viciously pacifistic love, me. ** l@rst, My pleasure, big L. Lost? Found. What up? ** malcolm, Hi, malcolm, welcome to here. Yeah, I never check back to see if comments come in late, bad habit. Oh, great. I’d love to see your film, and I’ll do my utmost to do that. Grand Action Cinema, 6 pm, I see. I think I can. Are you guys here for the screening? Congrats, and I really hope I can be there. If by chance I can’t, is there a link to a screener or something? But let me try to see it onscreen. Thank you a lot for the alert! Much love back. ** Steve Erickson, Nope, I haven’t heard the Reptile House. I’ll hunt it. I’ll start with that 8-minute closer. Thanks! ** Paul Curran, Man of the 24+ hours! My joy entirely. It totally blasted off. Mega-roiling love in quick return! ** Robert, Yay! Sometimes when I’ve felt really stuck, I’ll literally pull out a book or writer I like and start imitating the style/voice to break my logjam, and it almost always works, and no one has ever seemed to be the wiser about was what I wrote’s mentor. Yeah, I really would put that aside. I bet a million dollars that what you’re afraid is overly visible in your writing was just its launching pad. What’s really weird in retrospect is that Bernhard was all super cheerful, waving, bowing, grinning. He must’ve hit one of Amsterdam weed cafes just before. Ah, Rob. I’m always just Dennis except for family members (Denny) and a few old friends (Den). ** Niko, hi, Niko! How very nice to see you! I’m good, thank you. Wow, congratulations on the near finishing of your second novel. That’s very exciting, and a long time coming, no? Great! That’s a tough question about the end point. Ultimately for me I guess it’s mostly instinctual. There does always seem to come a point where I’m just left fiddling with punctuation and tiny things, and I realise it’s time to lock it down. I did used to have a trusted writer friend I showed my seemingly final drafts too, and that did help, but now I feel like I can tell. No, I’ve never had second thoughts about my novels. There are decisions in them that I wouldn’t have made if I knew what I know now, but I also think knowing more can also be a poison since, you know, sometimes what’s good about one’s writing is how one makes really curious mistakes. Generally, in my experience, it is usually about a year between acceptance of a novel by a publisher and its publication. And, as you probably know, you can make more changes when you’re doing your edit with your editor and even to some degree once the novel’s in galleys. All of which is to say, yeah, if the editing starts driving you crazy, you’re probably finished, and don’t be scared that you might not have reached the finish line because you’ll have time to work on it further. If that helps? Big congrats!!! ** Mike Rossi, Hi, Mike! Really nice to meet you! I’m sure we’re in agreement. How could we not be? I am absolutely going to see the ABBA virtual thing, you bet. I don’t know when. I guess in November maybe? When does it end, if it does? Wait, I’ll check. Awesome that you got to see it. I’m slathering. ** Brian, As you know, I’m a gigantic haunted attraction fan, but even I was never remotely tempted to try McKamey Manor. I do think it’s interesting that some people see Halloween as a good cover to indulge their masochism. The scariest and best moment in ‘Lost Highway’ for me is this brief but amazing moment near the beginning when Bill Pullman looks down this lowlit hall and then just starts walking into it. It’s like almost nothing, but it’s so eerie. ‘Save that for the honors course’: that is a nice retort. Shakespeare exhaustion is highly understandable. It sort of blows my mind that people are still assigned Herman Hesse. Not that I’ve read him since I was in high school. Productive Wednesday then. Mine was sort of vaguely too, but I need to get more productive today, wish me luck. Luck back if you need it. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Yeah, very sad and shocking about Joe. Fucking death. Cool that the ILP event went well. Michael said it did too, and he can be quite a grump, so it must’ve been good, ha ha. Zac and I wil be waving at you across the continent when you’re reading in NYC. Keep your skin peeled for a mysterious light breeze. Love, me. ** Mildred, Hi, Mildred. You have wonderful taste, and thank you for entering this humble abode. ** Right. Very recently I read the Caryl Churchill play I’m spotlighting today, and I thought it was great, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever read by her, strangely. Anyway, hence the share. See you tomorrow.
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