( Non-Realist Strategies in the Plays of Caryl Churchill Women must write through their bodies, they must invent

the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reversediscourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word silence,! the one that, aiming for the impossible, stops short before the word impossible! and writes it as the end"! Such is the strength of women that, sweeping away synta#, breaking that famous thread, $%& women will go right up to the impossible" 'Ci#ous ()*+, --+. /0l1ne Ci#ous2s criture fminine is an incitement for women to do away with traditional 'phallocentric. ways of writing and to sweep away the rules of synta# which govern the medium" She describes written and spoken language as being a patriarchal construct but one which cannot, for obvious reasons, simply be discarded or replaced and so she calls instead for women to use the tools of language but to alter its form in some way which is distinctly feminine" 3n theatre, this very same operation is carried out by playwrights through many and various strategies of non-realism" Realism is an oppressive and constricting theatrical mode because it professes to show the truth or reality rather than merely a single perspective, but the very rules which govern realism perpetuate the ideology from whence it originated, an ideology which is patriarchal in history, formula and content" Realist dramas necessarily reinstate the status 4uo even when they seem to be revealing social problems because the desired happy ending! must always be for the insurgent to be reclaimed by society, those which cannot be readmitted for one reason or another fre4uently die5 often by their own hand and never happily" 3n addition to which, the accepted parameters of normality! as dictated by realist dramas such as that of Chekov or 3bsen etc" are notably far from the universality claimed by the genre and are in actual fact very specific to the worlds which they depict"

= 3n the case of the two renowned playwrights mentioned that reality is a white, middleclass, western, male-dominated society in which the people are consistently governed by 6reudian psychologies and accepted patriarchal civilisation" 6eminist theatre practitioners often utili7e strategies of non-realism as a way of counteracting this kind of predetermined, rigid, reinforcement of phallocentric ideology" Caryl Churchill as one such playwright has never ceased to e#periment with various nonrealist techni4ues in terms of both form and content throughout her prolific career" 8ike many politically minded playwrights this e#perimentation seems to begin with a 9rechtian influence, however Churchill has by no means been limited to 9recht" She has made great use of significant cross-dressing:drag as a means of interrogating prescriptive gender categories" 3n many of her later plays Churchill has also collaborated with musical and movement artists in combining multiple performance types - acting, dance, song, - as a way of e#panding the media of e#pression through which her characters may communicate" 3n a way these plays e#emplify a kind of dramatic criture fminine by inscribing the body within their te#ts, and e#pressing a te#t which cannot be written or spoken but must be performed through a body" ;ost modern political playwrights begin with the theatrical techni4ues of 9recht for the very e#cellent reason that 9recht2s theory of the epic theatre has the e#press purpose of being entertaining and instructive at the same time"! '9recht < ;ueller 'trans". ()+(, (*." 9recht2s verfremdungseffekt, by persisting in distancing the audience from the emotions of the performance aims to alert the audience to the idea that a character2s actions are not the only possible outcome and that they need not necessarily agree with the character, or the actor, or indeed the playwright" 9y constantly making the

A commonplace seem strange or at least 4uestionable, the epic theatre teaches audiences not to take anything for granted so that they must always reach their own conclusions and constantly reposition themselves in relation to the onstage narrative" While Churchill2s plays do not completely comply with 9recht2s model of the epic theatre 'indeed it is doubtful that any playwright subscribes to all of the suggested techni4ues in any one play., certain elements of her dramaturgy are evidently influenced by its strategies" 6rom her earliest professionally produced plays she has played with the artificiality of theatrical performance" 3n Owners '()*=. for e#ample, Worsely repeatedly fails in attempts at suicide culminating in the last action of the play when he shoots himself in the head and misses!" 3n Fen '()-=., similarly, the powerlessness of death over the body of the actor within the diegesis is highlighted by the re-entrance of >al, unscathed, moments after the audience has witnessed her murder and the stowing of her body in a cupboard" ?nd in Traps '()*+. ?lbert comes in from the garden, covered in mud but otherwise unmarked, in complete contradiction of earlier conversations regarding his recent suicide yet without raising a single comment from the other characters" Churchill uses 9recht2s techni4ue of historici7ation in Cloud Nine '()*-. and in Light Shining in Buckinghamshire '()*+." 3n the case of the former the techni4ue is most obvious, drawing a comparison between the se#ual climate of the >ictorian era and that of the, then contemporary, ()*@s in order to highlight the e#cesses of both, the negative aspects of being too liberal as well as those of being too conservative" She also made use of 9rechtian musical interludes" 3n inegar Tom '()*+. the music is specifically set contemporaneously with the audience while commenting on the action, which is set in the

E seventeenth century" Bhe opening of Cloud Nine makes use of the musical techni4ue also, as a kind of e#position scene for the introduction of the principle characters" Cne form of verfremdungseffekt utili7ed by Churchill is cross-casting" 3n Cloud Nine she specifies that in the first act 9etty must be played by a man and her young son Ddward by a woman" She also recommends that in the second act, when these two characters are to be played by actors of their actual gender, that having the actors e#change roles creates the best doubling effect" 'Churchill ())+, =E*. Bhe reason for casting 9etty as a man is evident from the opening song in which she introduces herself ' what men want is what 3 want to be"! Churchill ())+, =F(." Ddward is played by a woman to indicate the difficulty he encounters in trying to behave as his father insists he ought" Criticism of the play has said that this particular casting choice is essentialist and a perpetuation of the stereotype that homose#uals can be e4uated with females '/arding ())-, =+F." /owever, the significance of the cross-casting has more to do with e#posing what Gudith 9utler terms the Hperformativity of gender2"( Bhe character of Ddward need not necessarily be read as a female trapped in a male role but simply as a person who cannot conform to the prescribed gender role into which society is forcing him" Bhe awkwardness of his internal confusion is very succinctly reali7ed and cleverly visuali7ed on the stage for the audience by the device of having him played by an actor of the opposite se#" 3n the second act the liberal, feminist, lesbian, 8in2s five-year-old daughter, Cathy is portrayed by a man" /er mother encourages her to behave as boisterously as she chooses" 8in does not want her daughter to be constricted by the codes of feminine behaviour prescribed by society" Bhe negative repercussions of 8in2s refusal to temper or
(

9utler, Gudith !ender Trou"le 8ondon, Routledge5 ())@

F tame her daughter are evinced in the cross-casting I Cathy is completely unsocialised, violent and e#cessive" Bhe implication is again, not to say that Cathy is, or behaves like a man but that she does not conform to the traditional role of a little girl" Bhe disruptive image of a grown man in the role is a visual indicator of the way that 8in2s lack of discipline, in direct contrast with Clive2s e#cessive discipline in ?ct Cne, is pushing Cathy too far in the opposite direction, these two are opposite e#tremes and both ways produce negative effects on the children" Churchill2s description of herself as a socialist-feminist can provide some insight into her preoccupation with the performativity of gender roles as she fre4uently insists on depicting how men are as trapped by the strictures of prescribed gender norms as women are" inegar Tom for e#ample, as a decidedly feminist work, borne of her collaboration

with feminist theatre company, ;onstrous Regiment, compares the witch-hunts of seventeenth century Dngland with contemporary marginali7ing and distrust of women who do not conform to conventional behaviour" Nonetheless Churchill, in keeping with her socialist leanings, shows through the debilitating fear of Gack and the sadistic glee of Joody that women are not the only victims of patriarchal ideological constraints and men are not the only proponents" 3n addition to cross-gender casting Churchill has e#perimented with doubling as a signifying strategy" Possibly inspired again by 9recht, she fre4uently foregrounds the disKuncture between actor and character sometimes by having multiple characters played by one actor and, more recently by having multiple actors performing as one character" 3n her production note for Light Shining in Buckinghamshire she wrote, Bhe characters are not played by the same actors each time they appear" Bhe audience should not have

+ to worry e#actly which character they are seeing" $%& When different actors play the parts what comes over is a large event involving many people, whose characters resonate in a way they wouldn2t if they were more clearly defined"! 'Churchill ())+, (-E." 3n Cloud Nine the character of ;rs" Saunders is played by the same actor who portrays Dllen which, as pointed out by both ?nne /errmann and ;ichael Patterson, makes the meeting of these two characters impossible in frustration of their obvious suitability for one another" 'Patterson =@@A, (++. 3n # $outhful Of Birds there is a great deal of play with the idea of possession so that the possibilities for doubling and multiplicity are opened wide" Bhe most comple# e#ample is in the episodes dealing with Lerek" Lerek is identified as unemployed, a fact which he feels emasculates him though he denies this both verbally and through his many Hmasculine2 pursuits, Swimming, karate, Kogging, garden, weights"! 'Churchill ())-, F." Bhe basis for # $outhful Of Birds is Duripides2 Bacchae, the principle characters of which I Pentheus, his mother, ?gave and the chorus of the bacchanals themselves I infiltrate Churchill2s te#t in the form of spirits who possess her characters" Lerek is possessed by Pentheus the misogynistic prince of Bhebes who angers his cousin Lionysus by refusing to recognise him as a god and forbidding the bacchic rituals which honour him" Pentheus, however has a desperate curiosity about these female-only revelries and, as the original story goes, allows the disguised Lionysus to convince him to dress as a woman in order to spy on his mother and the other womenfolk in their mad orgy which is being carried out in spite of his law" Bhe matter of this doubling 'emasculated Lerek with cross-dressing Pentheus. is further complicated by another possession of the character, this time by nineteenth century hermaphrodite /erculine:?bel 9arbin" Bhe

* scene in which /erculine possesses Lerek is very simply and cleverly portrayed by two performers I the male who has been portraying Lerek and a female dressed in nineteenth century male attire" Bhe woman hands artifacts from the life of /erculine to the man while speaking from /erculine2s perspective about his:her predicament, this arising from having been forced to choose a gender" Bhe man then, who has dressed his body in a shawl and petticoat repeats the words back to the woman, this time with her responses inserted sporadically, as he hands back the items and she packs them away" Bhe moment is beautiful in its simplicity and with an absolute minimum of garrulous dialogue Churchill very effectively interrogates the validity of gender categorisation and the insistence on se#ual conformity within society" Bowards the end of the play, Pentheus meets his inevitable end and is torn apart by the bacchants" 6or Lerek this translates to a se#-change operation and he e#presses his total contentment with his new body and new life stating, ;y skin used to wrap me up, now it lets the world in" $%& Dvery day when 3 wake up 32m comfortable"! 'Churchill ())-, F=. Bhe double possession of Lerek and of all of the characters in # $outhful Of Birds is portrayed through dance-movement" Bhis play which she co-wrote with Lavid 8an was the result of Churchill2s first collaboration with choreographer 3an Spink" 9efore this Churchill had worked with theatre companies like Goint Stock and ;onstrous Regiment but # $outhful Of Birds is something of a watermark for a new phase in Churchill2s writing when she began to e#ercise an interest in mi#ing disciplines, specifically by developing dance and movement as alternate modes of e#pression" She worked with 3an Spink on Lives of the !reat %oisoners '())(., The Skriker '())E., &otel '())*. as well as composers Gudith Weir 'The Skriker. and Crlando Jough 'the other two

plays. as music became more intrinsic to the interpretation of her theatre" ;ovement and dance are as removed from the conventions of realism as it is possible to get and provide myriad possibilities for performance" 3n ritual theatre forms like /indu Mathakali and Gapanese Noh, sentiments or thoughts are performed multiply, through speech, song and movement" Churchill2s plays of this era utilise these same modes of e#pression depending on which is most appropriate to make her meaning understood" Bhe possession scenes in # $outhful Of Birds depend heavily on the movement for their interpretation, for e#ample and, as Churchill herself wrote Bhe music of %oisoners is integral to the piece"! 'Churchill ())-, viii." /er use of spoken language also developed greatly, probably through the influence of the other media, such that the pinnacle of her linguistic achievement is probably the lyrical, wandering, associative dream-logic language of the eponymous Skriker" Bhough it seems, at first to be Kust incoherent babble this takes on its own codes of signification in a way similar to Ci#ous2 criture fminine" 3t has to be decoded, not according to the rules of Dnglish as laid down in te#t books, through history, but according to a logic of association, the meaning and intent of the Skriker is uncovered through reading the progression of the words she utters" /er speech is not linear, nor does it follow the rules of grammar and synta# so, rather than discerning the subKect and obKect or the tense of the verb in what she says, the audience must forego conventional codes and listen instead to the significance of each word and the words following it 'or sometimes contained within it. in order to decipher the connection and in this way come understand the Skriker2s meaning" Churchill2s theatre refuses the constraints of realism because they are limiting and out-dated" With so many more ways to e#press a thought through the body or an

) instrument5 movement, speech and song the idea of complying with conventional codes of the realist genre is preposterous" ?s a theatrical form it carries all the weight of its origins in white, western, patriarchal society in the same way that all canonical art-forms do" Caryl Churchill2s theatre resists categorisation, as her characters resist conformity, because it is a form of oppression" Challenging the so-called Hreality2 of realism is Kust one reason for renouncing the genre, as a feminist the patriarchal ideology of classical realist te#ts is no doubt repugnant, but as a socialist it is the stifling insistence on the unimaginative, formulaic, plausible reality which presents the really distasteful prospect because it means a complete dearth of creativity in both form and content for men as well as women" ?ny religiously followed convention is the enemy of progress in society and this is the root of the reason why feminist playwrights make use of strategies of nonrealism, because they provide alternative sites for e#pression, entirely new forums and forms, and an escape from the strictures of well-worn rhetoric dictated by the conventions stretching back to ?ristotle and the ?ncient Jreeks" Bhus it seems that Kust as Ci#ous demands a new form for the language of speech and written word, so too the theatre re4uires the alternative language of non-realism for women to inscribe themselves within their work and Caryl Churchill for one, has never ceased in her e#ploration of new forms for Kust such an e#pression for herself"

(@ 9ibliography

9recht, 9ertolt < Carl Richard ;ueller 'translator. Cn the D#perimental Bheatre! The Tulane 'rama (eview, >ol" +, No" (, 'Sep" ()+(., pp" A-(*"

9utler, Gudith !ender Trou"le) Feminism and the Su"version of *dentit+ 8ondon, New Nork, Routledge5 ())@"

Case, Sue-Dllen Classic Lrag, Bhe Jreek Creation of 6emale Parts! Theatre ,ournal, >ol" A*, No" A, Staging Jender, 'Cct" ()-F., pp" A(*-A=*"

Churchill, Caryl %la+s) - 8ondon, ;ethuen5 ())+"

Churchill, Caryl %la+s) . 8ondon, ;ethuen5 ())-"

Ci#ous, /0l1ne, Meith Cohen and Paula Cohen 'translators. Bhe 8augh of the ;edusa! Signs, >ol" (, No" E 'Summer ()*+., pp" -*F--)A"

Liamond, Dlin '3n.>isible 9odies in Churchill2s Bheatre! Theatre ,ournal, >ol" E@, No" =, ';ay, ()--., pp" (---=@E"

/arding, Games ;" Cloud Cover, 'Re.Lressing Lesire and Comfortable Subversions in Caryl Churchill2s Cloud Nine! %$L#, >ol" ((A, No" =, ';ar" ())-., pp" =F--=*="

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Patterson, ;ichael Strategies of %olitical Theatre) %ost/war British %la+wrights Cambridge, New Nork, ;elbourne, ;adrid, Cape Bown, Cambridge Oniversity Press, =@@A"