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 iii 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. v 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 vi 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 vii 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 viii 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. ix 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 x 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. xi