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Caryl Churchill Plays: Four
Nick Hern Books £14 99
309 pages
Dateline: 19th October, 2008
The fourth collected volume of plays by Caryl Churchill shows the writer
in what might be seen as her minimalist period. At times, not only does
she fail to see the need to complete sentences but, taking naturalism
beyond the borders of reality, even words become compressed.
Miss Churchill is a writer who has built her reputation on adventure
and variety and the seven works in this volume contain many different
ideas, styles and mode of presentation.
Her interests continue to follow the themes of her career but now,
as she reaches her seventh decade, the playwright particularly focuses
on the nature of truth, both personal and political.
The first offering, Hotel, does not work particularly well on
the page as it was written as an operatic piece by the playwright with
composer Orlando Gough and choreographer Ian Spink. The commentaries
of these three, together with the text give something of an impression
of the experience and prove really tempting. It would be great to see
a revival at some point in the future to get the full picture.
This Is a Chair is a witty, experimental piece that uses emotive
titles for each scene that have literally no relationship to the conversations
that then take place. Thus from The War in Bosnia to The Impact
of Capitalism on the Former Soviet Union the titles progresses through
global fears, while beneath these banners, small groups of inconsequential
people bicker with each other and that is its point.
Blue Heart is a delight. It started life as two separate plays,
Heart's Desire and Blue Kettle, each of which plays with
form as much as content, as is this writer's way.
Heart's Desire tells a seemingly simple story of a British couple,
together with the wife's sister, awaiting the return of their daughter
for a brief holiday from her home in Australia. As one can imagine,
this puts strains on the waiting family, who have probably not slept
for days. The twist comes with the variations on a theme, as repeatedly
the text runs backwards and gets repeated in versions that vary between
minor change and complete upheaval, the result is hilarity.
Blue Kettle focuses on a man who preys on old women, claiming
to be the long lost son that they had given up for adoption forty years
previously. In this case, the shtick is that gradually odd words in
the text are randomly replaced either with the word "blue"
or the word "kettle". Once again, broad comedy ensues.
Far Away is a seemingly simple but truly chilling play set amongst
hat makers in an unknown country. In three short scenes that work almost
as effectively on the page as on stage, Miss Churchill brings home to
readers much of the terror that must have been faced by those subject
to genocide around the world and particularly during the Holocaust.
By contrasting an innocent trade with horrors, she achieves far more
than those, especially on film, who attempt to ram home the same message
with portrayals packed with guns and corpses.
It seems strange now that Sir Michael Gambon's fellow actor in A
Number became the current James Bond. At the time, Daniel Craig
had worked in both stage and film but even so, an opportunity to appear
on the main stage at the Royal Court and the Caryl Churchill play would
have been a significant development in his career.
Craig played the three "sons" of a man in a society of the
future where cloning had become common. Through this medium, the playwright
explores relationships between fathers and sons and in particular, whether
there is a unique bond that not only connects generations of the same
family by guides the way in which people behave.
Caryl Churchill must have been proud to have the opportunity to publish
the script of A Dream Play. This is a new version of August Strindberg's
obscure drama set in the world of dreams. At the National Theatre, Katie
Mitchell and her cast reworked the text to meet their own needs, thereby
losing much of the coherence that the playwright had originally injected.
It would be good to think that a different director might attempt to
use the Churchill version, enabling audiences to get a feel for what
Strindberg was really attempting to achieve.
The final play in this volume is Drunk Enough to Say I Love You.
This two-hander, which like so much of the playwright's other work first
appeared at the Royal Court, might be the most political piece that
she has ever written.
Two characters, American Sam and British Guy (originally Jack but the
Union association irritated the author) cosy up to each other and theoretically
discuss their relationship. In fact, in broken sentences Sam extols
the virtues of American imperialism, while Guy does his best to seem
enthusiastic about the hegemony. However, he has a knack of putting
his foot in it, identifying the excesses by which the United States
has maintain its status as a world power over the last half century.
In many ways, the collection could not end with anything better, as
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You not only addresses a subject that
is clearly close to its writer's heart but also continues the stylistic
experimentation which characterises all of her work and especially this
most recent decade.
It seems entirely coincidental but this book was published at almost
exactly the same time as Faber and Faber's About
Caryl Churchill, to which it makes a perfect companion.
Philip Fisher
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