771 research outputs found
Gender, Politics, Subjectivity: Reading Caryl Churchill.
Get PDFThis doctoral dissertation approaches three plays written by British playwright Caryl Churchill (1938- ): Cloud Nine (1979), Top Girls (1982), and Blue Heart (1997). Her plays deal mainly with systems of oppression and their effects on the individual or on groups of people. These systems of oppression, reminiscent of the Foucauldian power structures, exert their restrictive power over the dispossessed -the working class, women, or gays and lesbians. The main objective of this dissertation is to demonostrate how a gender and politics-oriented approach to theatre can help to subvert some of the patriarchal and conservative assumptions implicit in traditional theatre. In this respect, the three plays analysed share the presence of recurrent themes: patriarchal society, the nuclear family, colonisation at several levels (race, gender, sexuality), and the capitalist system
Caryl Churchill: Representational negotiations and provisional truths
Get PDFJUDGE: Go away Barbara. I've had enough. Should we all be kind? You are lukewarm and will be vomited. There are two camps, Barbara, mine and theirs. Either you are with, or you are against.
Although English playwright Caryl Churchill wrote the three scripts examined in this thesis more than thirty years ago, each captures our contemporary zeitgeist in sometimes surprising ways. These works explore the shifting politics of power, revealing binary and essentialist representations that not only continue but have been strengthened on all sides in recent years, suggesting their central importance in defining and controlling culture.
This thesis examines how Churchill subverts conventional forms of representation and probes the ways in which she herself has been represented by critics and scholars at various periods of her writing career. It is my contention that these processes operate in tandem, performing an ongoing dialogue. Because of the dynamic nature of this dialogue, the aim here is not so much to provide an increasingly unified or finite understanding of the artistic milieu from which a play emerges, as it is to recognize the level of complexity underlying the mutable and political process of its interpretation.
I have undertaken a detailed exploration of three lesser-known short scripts from 1972, a 'watershed' year for Churchill, culminating in the relative success of Owners, her first major stage play. While many of her earlier works have been deserving of further exploration, a number of them have been largely overlooked in the broader environment of her subsequent contribution to contemporary theatre. The particular scripts that I explore in the course of this thesis are: The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution; Schreber's Nervous Illness and The Judge's Wife, an unperformed stage play, a radio play and a television play respectively. These works are worthy of exploration because of their experiments with the politics of subjectivity as it impacts on race, gender and social class, and notions of 'legitimacy' that shift with a person's changing circumstances. Each of these plays implicitly demonstrates the importance of subjectivity in relation to representational power as it places characters who have traditionally been silenced at the centre of the action.
I have titled my thesis Caryl Churchill: Representational Negotiations and Provisional Truths. In invoking this title I pre-empt the engagement of a subjective, strategic essentialist approach, both in critiquing this period of Churchill's work and in declaring the assumptions of the arguments contained in the pages that follow
Il teatro di Caryl Churchill
No full textDiffusione del teatro di Caryl Churchill in Italia. Problemi di traduzione e ricezione
In Richtung Delogozentrismus : eine Studie der dramatischen Arbeiten von Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard und Caryl Churchill
No full textThe relation between reality and language, the instability of language as a signification system, the representation crisis, and the borders of interpretation are the controversial issues that have engaged not only philosophers, but also many authors, translators, and literary critics. Some philosophers like Derrida accuse Western thinking of being obsessed with binary oppositions. In Derrida's view, Western tradition resorts to external references as God, truth, origin, center and reason to stabilize the signification system. Since these concepts lack an internal sense and there is no transcendental signified that can fix these signifiers, language turns to an instable system by means of which no fixed meaning can be created. Many authors like Beckett, Stoppard, and Caryl Churchill also noticed this impossibility of language. While Derrida's deconstructive approach to this crisis has an epistemological nature, these playwrights present an aesthetic solution by turning the deconstructive potential of language against itself in text and performance. This dissertation aims at exploring their performing methods and dramatic texts to demonstrate how their delogocentric strategies work. By analyzing their plays, I will examine if their use of signifiers that have no references in reality, intentional misconceptions, disintegrated subjectivities, decentered narratives, and experimental performances can help them undermine the prevailing logocentrism of Western thought. The examination of the change in aesthetic strategies from Beckett, who belongs to earlier stages of post modernism, to Caryl Churchill, who should perform in a globalized world with increasing dominance of speed and information, is another aim of this research. In my view,Beckett's obsession with unspeakable, absurdity, and disintegration of subjectivity develops to Stoppard's language games, metadrama, and anti-representation and culminates in Churchill's anti-narrative texts and pluralistic performances. The monophony of Beckett's dramatic texts is replaced by the polyphony of Churchill's performances, which are a mixture of theater, dance and music. However, all explored dramatic texts in this dissertation have something in common: they are language games, which have no claim on a faithful representation of reality or transcendental truth.Der Zusammenhang der Realität mit der Sprache, die Unstabilität der Sprache als ein Signifikationssystem, die Repräsentationkrise, und die Grenze der Interpretation sind die Streitpunkte, die nicht nur die zeitgenössischen Philosophen sondern auch viele Autoren beschäftigt haben. Manche Philosophen wie Derrida unterstellen, dass das westliche Denken das Wort als Sinträger betrachtet. Seiner Meinung nach beruht der Logozentrismus des abendländischen Denkens auf binärer Opposition oder externer Referenz wie der Präsenz von Gott, Wahrheit, Ursprung, Ursache, Transzendenz oder einem Zentrum. Da alle diese Begriffe ohne eigentlichen Inhalt sind, und es kein transzendentales Signifikat gibt, auf das alle diese Signifikanten jeweils verweisen, wird die Sprache zu einem unstabilen Signifikationssystem, deren Mittel keine fixierbare Bedeutung erschaffen wird. Aus dieser Problematik kommt eine Repräsentationkrise, die nicht nur die Philosophie sondern auch die Literatur betrifft. Ob und wie man gegen die Grenze der Sprache anrennen kann, ist nicht nur eine philosophische, sondern auch eine ästhetische Frage. Während die Antwort der Philosophen wie Derrida eine dekonstruktive Annäherung zur logozentrischen Interpretationen ist, schlägt die Literatur eine ästhetische Lösung vor: die Darstellung der Sprachkrise mittels der Sprache. Kann uns das experimentelle Kunstwerk der Autoren wie Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard und Caryl Churchill von der Illusion der Wirklichkeit befreien? Ist es möglich eine anti-erzählenden Erzählung zu schaffen, die die Dominanz des beherrschenden Diskurses abschaffen kann? Diese Fragen zu erforschen visiert diese Dissertation an. Die ersten Versuche dieser Autoren gegen pure Repräsentation richten sich an neue Phantasiequellen außerhalb der Realität. Dramatiker wie Beckett, Stoppard und Churchill nutzen die Eigendynamik der Sprache als eine Quelle um ihren Funktionsausfall darzustellen. Die Signifikate, die sich auf keine wirkliche Signifikante beziehen, die Charakteren, für die es kein Duplikat in der Realität gibt, die zerbrochene Subjektivität, die sich nicht mittels Sprache äußern kann, die Handlung, der es an Einheit oder auch Beschlussunfähigkeit mangelt, und schließlich die Sprache die nicht mehr eine ordentliche Sprache ist, stellen das Mittel, das diese Dramatiker für die Dekonstruktion der Sprache und des Textes brauchen. Diese Arbeit wird versuchen bei der Analyse ihrer Theaterstücke aufzuzeigen, wie die Methode, die diese Autoren genutzt haben, sich im Lauf der Zeit geändert hat. Becketts Besessenheit mit dem Unsprechbaren, der Sinnlosigkeit oder zerstörter Subjektivität steigert sich zu undeutlicher Sprache, Identitätsverlust und Antirepräsentation bei Stoppard und kulminiert in Destrukturierung des Narrativs und der Sprache bei Churchill. Die Einstimmigkeit von Becketts Werken ist durch die Polyphonie von Churchills Theaterstücke, die eine Mischung aus Theater, Tanz und Musik sind, ersetzt worden. Alle Theaterstücke, die in dieser Arbeit analysiert wurden haben jedoch eine gemeinsame Eigenschaft: Sie sind Sprachspiele, die keinen Anspruch auf Realitätstreue oder transzendentale Wahrheit haben
The unburiable: Representations of pain and violence in selected works of Sarah Kane and Caryl Churchill
Get PDFIn this thesis I intend to answer the question of how representations of pain and violence in the selected plays of Kane and Churchill assist the critical understanding of those works. The works I have selected are Sarah Kane’s Blasted and Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A play for Gaza. To assist the understanding of the spectator and to enable me to engage with the plays in closer detail I draw on a selection of theories from the philosophers Judith Butler and Arne Johan Vetlesen. In particular I discuss Butler’s theorisation of grief, vulnerability and responsibility to (and for) the Other. I also discuss Vetlesen’s responses to pain and torture, with emphasis on his notions of pain transference. From my reading and analysis of the plays, I find that both works provoke a complex set of responses to issues of communal responsibility and identity. The reference in the title to ‘the unburiable’ is a term coined by Butler to explain the efforts of some people to dehumanise the Other. Applying the theoretical ideas of Butler and Vetlesen to the plays provides a way to negotiate the fragile gap between those that matter and those who have become the unburiable
The Female Voices in Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls" (1982): Sisters or Foes?
No full textMàster Oficial en Construcció i Representació d'Identitats Culturals (CRIC), Facultat de Filologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Any: 2010, Director: Dr. Enric MonforteThis paper analyzes the different female voices in Caryl Churchill’s "Top Girls". Chapter I begins with an overview of the present-day attitude of women toward feminism. Next, it defines some of the various types of feminisms that have appeared in the Anglo-American world. Next, it focuses on the contradiction between the feminist ideal of equality and the reality of the differences between women. Chapter II begins with a brief description of the socio-political and economic context of the play. Next, it examines the female voices as they appear and communicate in the play. Further on, it inquires about the possibility for women to speak with a unified voice. Finally, the conclusions point out Churchill’s pluralist approach to feminism
Coração Partido, de Caryl Churchill
Get PDFTranslation of Caryl Churchill's Blue Heart.Tradução de Coração Partido, de Caryl Churchill
‘Women Being Violent’ and Sinthomosexuality: On A Mouthful of Birds by Caryl Churchill and David Lan
Get PDFA Mouthful of Birds by Caryl Churchill and David Lan was first performed in 1986 and is notable for deviating from the themes of ‘family’ and ‘children’ commonly found in many of Churchill’s other works. This analysis applies Lee Edelman’s theories of ‘reproductive futurism’ and ‘sinthomosexuality’ as discussed in his work No Future, to examine the violence exhibited by women in A Mouthful of Birds. Through this lens, this thesis focuses on what is ugly, foul, and meant to be hidden—things that have been obscured in public society and community—and it analyzes the mechanisms by which the play frames violence as a means to make such unseen elements visible and to affirm them. First, the play’s basic plot and formal characteristics are introduced, particularly its experimental structure that blends dance and drama, as well as the scenes that revolve around ‘possession’. Next, the concept of sinthomosexuality is employed to analyze how female violence, miscommunication, and eventual solitude is intertwined with jouissance. Finally, the play as an adaptation of the Greek tragedy The Bacchae is explored, particularly how the depiction of possession and violence connects to queer theory. Special attention is given to scenes where male characters cross gender boundaries and to the representation of hermaphrodite identities. A Mouthful of Birds is a work in which each character destroys their ‘social’ identity and even his/her life through violence and destruction, and opens up to multiple possibilities without offering easy solutions. The play shows the audience ways of embracing the destructive, the negative, and the refusal to offer traditional grand themes like ‘mutual respect’ or a ‘productive future’, focusing instead on dismantling them.departmental bulletin pape
Fen by Caryl Churchill
No full textPoster advertising Fen by Caryl Churchill, directed by Laurence Strangio, presented by Newman College at Guild Theatre, University of Melbourne. Part of MUD Festival 1991
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