Churchill's Script For After Dinner Joke example essay topic

How Does Caryl Churchill Affect The Acting And Production Process Through Her Script Writing Caryl Churchill has furthered feminist performance theory, in the last twenty years, and broadened traditional views of gender roles through her script writing. For example, her plays Cloud Nine and Top Girls defy traditional convention, with Cloud Nine's cross-gender casting and Top Girl's pro-Thatcherite ethos as its foundation. Churchill has affected the acting and production process in the way she has written her scripts, such as the mentioned pieces, and the way in which theatre is performed. "Her work is heavily influenced by the practices of experimental and physical theatre: not one to make it easy for an audience, she prefers to tell a tale in a challenging, sometimes meandering way". The language in Far Away appears very normal within the context of the piece, though the subject of the book is something that most audiences would either not understand or be disgusted by. .".. and in fact I killed two cats and a child under five so it wasn't that different from a mission". - Joan Churchill's script, for Far Away, can be seen to turn our present day society into a collection of barbarous individuals, sparing no exception to the animal kingdom and Mother Nature.

One could see this as Churchill's own portrayal of the War of the Worlds. Joan shows concern regarding where the loyalties of the nearby river lies. This could be seen as quite an absurd gesture, however falls into place within the Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 2 context of the piece and the society in which the characters are living in. Everything on planet Earth is at war with one another. Churchill's post modern script can be seen to affect the acting and production process by the way in which it transform the actors into characters, that are unrelated to present day society, who far more in touch with their primordial instinct of 'survival of the fittest' in this unimaginable war.

"I've shot cattle and children in Ethiopia. I've gassed mixed troops of Spanish, computer programmers and dogs. I've torn starlings apart with my bare hands... I could go on all day doing that, it was better than sex".

- Todd. The characters within Churchill's script appear almost quite normal at the beginning, in regards to the very start of the play where the initial conversation between Joan and Harper, Joan's aunt, takes place. Harper can be seen to be very protective of Joan, and how much of the truth she is being exposed to, with the continuous number of explanations she gives to Joan about what she 'saw' her uncle doing. If one were to look at what these characters are saying, one might be able to look deep into the eerie truth behind their actions.

It's important to note the way in which Todd describes his destructive behaviour as being 'better than sex'. One could come to the conclusion that in the world of Far Away, the violence that has ensued as a result of the war, has become a replacement to an intimate and powerful exchange of emotions. This can be used as an example to show how Churchill's script has turned things around for the human race, animal kingdom and Mother Nature in such a way, as to affect the way in which regular theatre might be approached through the Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 3 acting and production process. "Caryl Churchill's chilling vision of the future brilliantly directed by Stephen Dal dry". (Review of Far Away) Blue Kettle is the story of a disturbed and insecure individual called Derek who preys on old women making claim to being the son they never knew. The language that Caryl Churchill adopts in this piece is very simple and clear from the start, and is conventionally banal.

Eventually the language being adopted is broken down, deconstructed to an exchange of words that include 'blue' and 'kettle'. This can be seen like a child's game of exchanging real words for code words, to prevent outsiders / adults from understanding what is being said. However, in the rhythm of the sentence the changed words fall into place and it is clear what is meant. Towards the end of the play, the two words crowd out almost all the rest, but the meaning is still fairly clear. But, in the closing scene, 'blue' has been reduced to 'bl' or 'b' and 'kettle' to 'ket ket ket' or 'k k k'.

And as one can see from this how Caryl Churchill affects the acting process through her script writing. "Churchill has never been a playwright cowed by dramatic conventions... in Blue Kettle, language itself is eventually tossed aside, as the dialogue of the emotionally resonant little play is gradually reduced to the two words of the title - and ultimately just the letters that compose them - with scant loss in the power or meaning". In regards to the characters of Blue Kettle, there are varied selections of different Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 4 personalities who appear in the play. The mothers in Blue Kettle, Mrs Plant, Mrs Oliver, Mrs Vane, and Mrs Clarence all come from different backgrounds and have all got distinctive personalities.

And finally, Derek, the play's anti-hero, is an unmarried nobody of forty years, preying on the old women who have had to give up a son at birth, either because they were unmarried, or already married to someone not the father. Derek has a girlfriend called Enid whom he lives with, but he seems less interested in her than in the succession of mothers he finds for himself. "Ket ket still... I'm still ket I am... if bl liked me".

- Derek Derek appears a lot weaker than he might appear, as he desperately goes between one mother to another searching for something he has not already found. This may be in relation to the fact that Derek's own mother is in a geriatric ward with failing health and offers little comfort to Derek. Here we can see another way in which Churchill's script writing has affected the acting and production process by the way in which she is able to create layers within the plot, whereby having a continuous underlying meaning to Derek's search for an alternative mother as an emotional substitute as apposed to a means to financial gain. "The device symbolizes the deeper truth the play itself illustrates, as Derek's quest is seen to be less a result of opportunism than desperate need - his own mother is in failing health, and he seems to be searching for substitutes. The final scene, in which one of the women learns that he is not in fact her son, and Derek implores her to love him anyway, is both devastating and uplifting". Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 5 In our own production of Blue Kettle a simple set was used.

There was a blue sink that had a blue kettle on it, the set was painted black and we used white seats. The blue was symbolic as a means that everything blue within the piece reflected Derek's lies. This was also relevant to the way in which the way the stage was lit. A blue flood was cast on the back walls of the set whenever Derek met with 'his' mothers as continuity to this symbolism, and a small blue light was placed underneath the sink to add to the already surreal atmosphere of the play.

Through Churchill's script, the group was left free to explore the symbolism in our approach to the staging and the set of Blue Kettle. And through it came our own interpretation, thus showing how Churchill affected the production process. Enid: What is it Blue are you doing Why are you kettle whatever it is you " re kettle Derek: It's probably got multi-benefits. Among the issues within the play adoption was one of the main issues, though ironically Derek was not looking for his biological mother, but a replacement mother for his 'real' mother who had been placed in a geriatric ward. Thus leading onto the mental state of Derek, who appears to be a very weak character, whose behaviour can be seen to have been seen as a desperate cry for help. Isherwood, in his review of Blue Kettle, had pointed out that Derek was an insecure individual that lacked stability.

One could compare this to Tom Ripley in Minghella's 'The Talented Mr Ripley', as an unstable individual who. ".. thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody". The issues of this play are things that are universal in Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 6 the respect that nobody is ever completely one hundred percent stable, and this is the way Churchill's script would affect the acting and production process by putting the actor in touch with, what some would believe to be, feelings that are inherent in all human beings. Price: I see and headboard would buy a pump for a well and a camel cart and a - In After Dinner Joke, Churchill has chosen to concentrate on the universal issue of third-world awareness and the plight of the people of famine stricken Africa. The approach in Churchill's script for After Dinner Joke gave a clear cut story of what was happening in these countries in Africa, and what was being done in the way of solving these problems. The approach that was taken in After Dinner Joke for the University's production can be seen to have been very Brechtian in its nature, in comparison to Blue Kettle's more naturalistic approach. The lead character, Selby, is quite literally running and jumping in between the scenes.

It may be suggested that there was a sense of time moving ever quicker between scenes as well. For example, Selby finds herself captured by the local militia in a scene directly after having had a conversation with the Mayor where she was never in any obvious danger from an onlooker's perspective. It is important to note, however, the difference the piece has when staged, in comparison to the original TV recording. One can see how Churchill's script has Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 7 affected the acting and production process of this particular production of After Dinner Joke. The characters within After Dinner Joke can be seen to be very typical in the everyday life of the corporate world. For example, you have a head of a company, namely Price, who is very fond of an employee, Selby.

There is another top man in the company who is not as pleasant as Price, Dent, who wishes to remove Price and discredit Selby at every turn. "Miss Selby seems incapable of recommending a project". - Dent Churchill's script for After Dinner Joke can be seen to have a very truthful over view of what goes on at the top of the corporate ladder in most companies, and gives access to the actor to experience the reality of the Dog-Eat-Dog system within the corporate world. "Top Girls (1982) again sets history against the present.

But here, unlike Cloud 9, the comparison demonstrates that changes in the position of women are superficial". As this paper moves on from After Dinner Joke, one can see how Top Girls represents a point in which Churchill script writing takes a step beyond the audience fascination that was received with Cloud Nine's sex and gender reversal and subsequent feminist commentary. In examining Churchill's language in Top Girls, the actor can be seen to learn not Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 8 only when his / her line begins, but also what words of the previously spoken line spark the response from the other actor. These moments have been referred to as 'overlapping'. These points in the script identify to the actor instances of heightened conflict, whereby the needs and the emotions might intensify.

The language of Top Girls, and the way it has been written by Churchill, can be seen to show meaning and indicate direction to the actors, as well as the socialist and feminist commentary and criticism. From this piece, one can see the way in which there is uniqueness to Churchill's dramatic language, with the now identifiable overlapping, pauses, and rhythmic stops and starts. "Marlene's explicitly Thatcherite competitive ethos has no place for the uneducated and the under privileged... The cost of reaching the top in such a system is demonstrated by the revelation that this girl (Dull Get) is Marlene's unacknowledged daughter...

The pursuit of capitalist rewards has meant rejecting maternal instinct human feelings and moral values". The characters within Top Girls can be seen to show the transitional period in Thatcherite Britain where women were becoming career-minded and finding themselves in career positions never before filled by women. Marlene is the exact example of where women were headed in the corporate world. One could see the way Churchill has also included this into After Dinner Joke, which is set in the latter part of the seventies, whereby at the end of the play Selby is in a managerial position. Though this was done in a more light-hearted spirit without the solemn tones that hang about Top Girls. This can be seen to be the way in which Churchill's attention to Daniel Moscovitch Caryl Churchill 9 current affairs in plays such as Top Girls and After Dinner Joke have affected the acting and production process.

Caryl Churchill can be seen to have affected the acting and production process of today's theatre in many different ways through her script writing. The 'chilling vision' of the future in Far Away pushes the actors into a new world, a new approach to their character studies. Top Girls, a reflection of Thatcherite Britain in the late seventies and eighties, takes the actors back to a milestone for the women population of Britain. After Dinner Joke, another reflection of the fight for Third World awareness and the fight against poverty and famine in the late seventies that would lead to such projects as Band Aid.

This paper has seen how these particular scripts have affected the acting process, by pushing actors to achieve new feats, and the production process, by the way in which a play is staged and cast.