Political returns on the twenty-first century stage: Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? and Seven Jewish Children

There is some hesitation in theatre scholarship to confront and engage with the resurgence of political theatre in the 21st century, despite the vast numbers of political plays that have been performed in a variety of genres on the British stage in the last decade. This article considers the rejuvenation of political theatre in the 21st century and focuses in particular on Caryl Churchill’s Far Away (2000), Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006) and Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza (2009). I argue that these plays rehabilitate explicit political comment for the stage as well as discover fresh theatrical languages to represent what are often familiar political narratives. The discussion borrows from the writings of Jacques Rancière to help identify strategies Churchill’s plays use to find innovative ways of producing new forms of political subjectivity in audiences

Drama and utopian forms of relationality

This paper begins by challenging the use of “domestication” in the phrase the “domestication of utopia” because of the term’s gendered, raced, and classed histories. It emphasizes how “domestication” is both a (patriarchal) metaphor for femininity, and a potential site of resistance, particularly within Black feminism. Instead, a range of alternative terms, such as co-option or appropriation are offered in its place. The paper then moves on to argue for the importance of centring fundamental, systemic change in engagements with utopian art (drama in this instance). It discusses the difficulty of discovering utopian theatre texts, and suggests that one of the reasons for this might be the tightly circumscribed field of utopian studies itself, which has been historically preoccupied with measurement, categorisation, narrow definitions, and exclusions. The paper then proposes that drama and performance are potentially rich sites for the exploration of new, utopian forms of subjectivity, social relationality, and utopian affective attachments. The paper ends by noting the importance of encouraging an ongoing process of self-critique within the field of Utopian Studies, as well as pointing to the limitations of academic critique and practice for a utopian politics

The utopian potential of aging and longevity in Bernard Shaw’s Back to Methuselah (1921)

The utopian potential of aging and longevity in Bernard Shaw’s Back to Methuselah (1921

Caryl Churchill's ecological dystopias

This chapter discusses Caryl Churchill's The Skriker (1994) and Far Away (2000) as ecological dystopias

Utopian gesture in the cold climate of Thatcherism: Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and Fen

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Still a socialist? Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker and Far Away

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Churchill's socialism: political resistance in the plays of Caryl Churchill

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The revolution will not be dramatized: the problem of mediation in Caryl Churchill’s revolution plays

This article discusses three of Caryl Churchill's plays on revolution: The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (1972), Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) and Mad Forest (1990). It considers the power of revolution as a live, collective process and the ways in which Churchill's plays confront and encode the difficulties of mediation

I just die for some authority!: barriers to Utopia in Howard Brenton’s Greenland

Written and performed just after Margaret Thatcher’s third election victory in Britain in 1987, Howard Brenton’s final play in his utopian trilogy, Greenland, is a rare example of a playwright’s attempt to construct a utopian future on stage. The second Act of Greenland partially resembles classic utopian fiction, and this staging of an alternative way of being seemed to exasperate, irritate and disturb many commentators. The Act’s absence of conflict, lack of historicism, and the contentment of its inhabitants have been cited as reasons for its dismissal. This interpretation to some extent concurs with the character, Severan-Severan, whose view is that misery and suffering are essential to the human condition and that liberation is a living death. However, this approach neglects a more complex engagement with utopia that is present in the play. Audiences – along with the non-utopian character, Joan – respond to Greenland in a way that can be illuminated by Frederic Jameson’s idea of the ‘terror of obliteration,’ an idea that considers our hostility to utopia to be based upon the inconceivability of altogether different notions of subjectivity available in utopia. A second obstruction to engaging utopia is considered to be related to genre. In Greenland’s resemblance to the sanctioned temporary festivities of green world comedy, it undermines genre expectations by removing temporal and ideological delimitations. This article discusses ways in which Greenland exposes psycho-political and genre-related barriers to utopia, barriers that frame the audience’s view of the play, and barriers that are additionally exposed and critiqued as part of the non-utopian condition