![]() She has continuously rejected linear structure and the use of the master narratives of socialist realism to present her themes. To her art, she contributes an inventive mind and a willingness to invest great energies in wedding the play to the performance. She remains a force crying out for the release of the individual of either gender from the oppressive imperatives of past practices and present expectations. She is an inspiration to the feminist movement and to women intellectuals around the world. Whatever her politics and philosophy, Churchill brings a fire and an energy, a special eye and ear, to the postmodern English drama. Just so, she is equally committed to considering the individual and the power drained from that individual by the forces of modern economic and social systems. In another sense, Churchill is interested in the greater issues of gender and the games of power played with gender at stake. Churchill herself has argued that both issues are so important to her-the plight of women and the need for a socialist world-that she could not choose between them and would not have one problem alleviated without a concurrent solution to the other. Churchill has examined with great sympathy, in works such as Fen and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, the plight of the male, or of both genders, caught up in the destructiveness of inhuman economic forces. Indeed, her plays do not attempt to confound the two issues, although Top Girls does investigate the influence that capitalism can have on women and their willingness to forsake their humanity for economic gain. She is also emphatic in her position that the two are not one and the same. Not surprisingly for a contemporary female writer, many times she makes use of female characters to explore such themes.Ĭhurchill has openly proclaimed herself a feminist and a socialist. Each of these impediments to the development and happiness of the individual is explored in her works. Her principal concern is with the issues attendant on the individual’s struggle to emerge from the ensnarements of culture, class, economic systems, and the imperatives of the past. Churchill, however, is a playwright of ideas, ideas that are often difficult and, despite her bold theatricality, surprisingly subtle and elusive. Her innovations in this regard are sometimes so startling and compelling that reviewers tend to focus on the novelty of her works to the exclusion of her ideas. ![]() ![]() Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938, London) has become well known for her willingness to experiment with dramatic structure.
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