Títol de la tesi: Gender, Politics, Subjectivity: Reading Caryl Churchill

348 Pages·2002·0.79 MB·English

DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA ANGLESA I ALEMANYA
UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA

Programa de doctorat: Literatura i identitat
Bienni 1992-94
per optar al títol de doctor en Filologia Anglesa

Títol de la tesi: Gender, Politics,
Subjectivity: Reading Caryl Churchill

Nom del doctorand: Enric MONFORTE RABASCALL

Nom de la directora de la tesi: Pilar ZOZAYA ARIZTIA

Data de lectura: 25 de febrer de 2000
Als meus pares, Isabel Rabascall Puig
i Enric Monforte Tena, amb afecte.

A la memòria de Bryan Allan.
CONTENTS

AGRAÏMENTS ................................................. v

INTRODUCTION ................................................. vii

CHAPTER I. FEMINISM AND THEATRE ............................ 1

CHAPTER II. THATCHER'S ENGLAND .............................. 29

CHAPTER III. CARYL CHURCHILL: A WOMAN PLAYWRIGHT ............. 43

CHAPTER IV. ORGASMS AND ORGANISMS: CLOUD NINE
AS THE DISRUPTION OF THE SYMBOLIC ORDER ......... 67

CHAPTER V. IRON MAIDENS, DOWNTRODDEN SERFS:
TOP GIRLS OR HOW WOMEN BECAME
COCA-COLA EXECUTIVES ............................ 137

CHAPTER VI. CRUNCHING ONE'S OWN PRICK: BLUE HEART
AND THE POSTSTRUCTURALIST FEMINIST
CANNIBALISM OF THE PATRIARCHAL MALE SUBJECT ..... 233

CONCLUSIONS ................................................. 291

APPENDIX ................................................. 307

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................. 323

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AGRAÏMENTS
A la Doctora Pilar Zozaya he d'agrair-li la seva vàlua, tant
a nivell personal com professional. He tingut el plaer de
comprovar-ho en ambdues vessants. A nivell personal, fruint de la
seva simpatia i amabilitat. A nivell professional, com a alumne a
les seves classes de teatre anglès, on vaig intentar aprendre part
del seu rigor i del seu avançat sistema pedagògic. Com a col.lega
a la Universitat de Barcelona he tingut l’oportunitat de continuar
aprenent al seu costat. També he d'agrair-li l'haver-me fet
descobrir l'obra de Caryl Churchill.
Als meus pares, pel seu suport constant.
A la meva germana, Isabel Monforte Rabascall, sense qui
escriure aquesta tesi m’hauria resultat molt més dur, i pel seu
constant estímul intel.lectual, vital i afectiu.
Als meus col.legues del departament de Filologia Anglesa i
Alemanya de la Universitat de Barcelona, i especialment a Cristina
Alsina, Mireia Aragay, Jackie Hurtley, Gemma López, Ana Moya,
Carme Muñoz i Bill Phillips.
Als meus amics i amigues: Keith Birch, Peter Bursell,
Catherine Favret, Susana Galilea, Pere Gaviria, Laia Gimó, Evarist
Granado, Núria Gual, Danièle Juving, Keyvan Lankarani, Albert
Martínez, Irene Quiñonero, Martí Pumarola, Laura Ripoll, Brian
Robinson, Fernando Sandoval i Gilles Shewell. Gràcies per oferir-
vos a fer el que calgués, pel vostre afecte i pel vostre suport.
Al Paul Ambrose, pels seus ànims en moments difícils.
Al Francesc Amella, per la seva informació pràctica.
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Al Max Stafford-Clark, per haver-me concedit una entrevista a
Londres i haver-me convidat als assajos de Blue Heart.
A l'Ángel García Celorio, per aparèixer a temps per a
l'última empenta.

INTRODUCTION
This study has its origins in a lecture I attended in 1990.
The lecture was given by Professor Pilar Zozaya and it was part of
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a seminar on women writers who had been neglected by the literary
establishment. The seminar was the first one on women's studies
held at the University of Barcelona. The talk I attended in the
spring of 1990 was on the subject of a British playwright I had
never heard about. Her name was Caryl Churchill and the play
discussed was Top Girls. There was something so engaging in
Professor Zozaya's talk that, almost immediately, I started
developing an interest in the playwright and, especially, in the
play referred to. This thought would eventually lead me to
consider the possibility of devoting a significant part of my life
to undertaking postgraduate studies. And I did. First at New York
University, where I achieved an MA in Comparative Literature, and
then at the Universitat de Barcelona, where I continued with my
doctoral studies leading to the completion of a PhD in English
literature. All the while, whether in Barcelona, in New York City,
or in my visits to London, I developed and refined my interest in
the theatre of Caryl Churchill. Unfortunately, I was never able to
see any of her plays in a live performance. On most occasions, I
did not happen to be in London at the time the plays were
performed, or, even worse, there was no way on earth to find
tickets available. I remember two especially painful occasions
when a play would open the day after my departure, having to face
the dreadful dilemma of losing my airplane ticket or missing the
play. Economy won. Anyhow, I finally got the chance of watching
two video recordings of two of her plays. The first one, Cloud
Nine, at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, in
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New York City. The second, Top Girls, in a video version that was
broadcast by the BBC in 1991 and that thankfully was made
available to the general public. Quite incredibly -and this
reinforces the ephemerability intrinsic to the art of theatre,
there is not anything else available in video form from any of the
plays Ms Churchill has written so far (at least in London and New
York, the two places I have thoroughly traced). However, in
January 1999 I had the honour and the pleasure of attending two
rehearsals of one of her latest plays, Blue Heart, before an
international tour and a second run in London would take place.
Attending the rehearsals in a freezing warehouse in North London,
sitting with Caryl Churchill herself and director Max Stafford-
Clark, witnessing their creative process, watching him directing
the actors, watching her give some comments on the results of the
rehearsals, gave the situation a feeling of unreality. Was I
sitting with two of the people who had so decisively contributed
to the shaping of what was known as contemporary British drama?
Was I having tea with them? Ms Churchill being totally averse to
giving interviews, I was not very lucky in being given one.
However, director Max Stafford-Clark agreed to talk to me and we
had quite a long conversation after one of the rehearsals that I
have included here as an appendix.
The next thing to consider refers to the approach to Caryl
Churchill and to the plays analysed. Caryl Churchill enjoys quite
strong popularity in certain select circles in Britain and in the
United States, but unfortunately she is not very well-known
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outside an English-speaking context. In both countries there is a
lot of research being done in university departments of English.
Yet, outside this context, it is only the theatre-goers that
regularly attend the Royal Court Theatre in London, the ones that
will know her better. Ms Churchill could be known on a greater
scale by two of her plays. The first one is Top Girls, that was
broadcast by the BBC and that has recently being declared by
Michael Billington as one of the best ten British plays of the
century.1 The second one, Serious Money, is probably the most
popular of her plays, being the only one successful enough to be
performed in London's West End.
On the other hand, some of her plays have also being shown in
the United States (mostly in New York City with British actors,
but there are also a number of other productions being undertaken
by professional companies –such as Eureka Theatre- or university
theatre groups –like the one at Ohio State University). Contrary
to the case in England, Churchill's most successful play in New
York City was Cloud Nine, that ranfor two years at quite a
prestigious theatre in Greenwich Village.
Apart from these instances of success, the fact is that Ms
Churchill is not that well-known by the general public. In Spain,
there is not one single play written by her to have been
performed. I find this quite unbelievable and also an example of
shortsightedness on the part of the local impresarios.

1 See Billington, Michael. “Ever Ever Land”. The Guardian: Arts. 3 September
1997: 14-5. See also the interview with Max Stafford-Clark in the appendix.
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It was quite difficult to decide on the plays to be analysed,
but I finally selected the three that appear here, Cloud Nine, Top
Girls, and Blue Heart, for a number of reasons. The first one was
that I wanted this work to deal with contemporary British drama,
thus I decided to concentrate on plays belonging to the last
twenty years. I also wanted to analyse plays that were in touch
with the context in which they had been produced, that were a
representation of their times.
In this sense, there is a clear path that can be followed
starting with Cloud Nine, a play conceived in the late seventies,
just before Thatcherism emerged. The play is a clear example of
the atmosphere that could be perceived in the Britain of the 1970s
in some sections of the population, a more alternative culture
that searched for new possibilities regarding politics and
personal relationships, and that explored different forms of
counter-culture. Even though there are some sections of the play
that present us with the threat of the Victorian past, the outcome
is one of optimism in front of oppression and danger, a belief in
the capabilities of the community to overcome such dangers. Such a
belief is, in my view, characteristic of the revolutionary times
in which the play was written, with the feminist and the lesbian
and gay movements shaking English society. This is the reason why
I will give the play a definite emphasis on gender issues.
Analysing Top Girls after the commotion depicted in Cloud
Nine, we experience a definite move in time. The play is a clear
representation of the Britain of the 1980s, in the sense that the
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threat of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative party is depicted
as characterised by a lethal power to annihilate any sense of
community and socialist organisation of society. The move towards
radical capitalism that swept Western societies in this decade is
thoroughly exemplified in the play through the fight between two
sisters from the working class that have evolved differently in
life: one stays within her class of origin but the other manages
to ascend in society through the absolute sacrifice of her roots.
Due to the bleak envisioning of the future the play effects, its
mood is much darker than that of Cloud Nine.
The third play to be analysed, Blue Heart, follows the other
two in the sense that it can be seen as representative of its time
(i.e. the 1990s). In this sense, the atmosphere of danger that
appeared already in Cloud Nine but was overcome by optimism and
strength, and that reappeared in Top Girls, this time with much
more fury and foreseeing devastating consequences, is here fully
shown. After the strain inflicted on the country by a series of
Conservative governments from 1979 to 1997, and also due to the
movement towards radical Capitalism that the West has experienced,
the final atmosphere we are presented with is one of total gloom.
In this sense, on the part of Churchill there is a withdrawal into
a world where language and the word seem to have lost their
healing power -or maybe what she is doing is to reflect the world
she perceives precisely as a consequence of the realisation of the
inability of language to lead anywhere. The picture of this decade
is thus pervaded with nihilism.
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