Unit 8

Caryl Churchill 

• Born 3rd September 1938
• British playwright
• Uses non-naturalistic techniques
• Known for sexual politics and feminist themes
• She has used Brecht's modernist Epic Theatre techniques within her plays
• She has used Artaud's dance theatre techniques within her plays
• In the 1960s and 1970s she wrote short radio dramas for BBC radio
• She was a resident dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre
• She collaborated with Joint Stock Theatre Company and Monstrous Regiment

She has written short radio plays such as: 

• The Ants
• Not, Not, Not, Not Enough Oxygen
• Schreber's Nervous illness

She has written numerous plays such as:

• Owners
• Cloud Nine
• Top Girls
• The Striker
• A Number
• Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?
• Love and Information
• Seven Jewish Children

She has explored many themes including the following: socialism, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, finances, Anglo-American stereotypes, global ecology, cloning, information, love.#

Love and Information

Love and Information is an episodic play involving seven sections of 57 scenes in total not relating to each other. Caryl Churchill deliberately makes the scenes short and vague to give the actor/director more freedom to interpretation. Not giving characters allows the actor the challenge of creating the scene's characterisation and backstory. The way the lines are broken up and it seems that the characters are interrupting each other mid-sentence means it represents real life in a naturalistic yet abstract way. Another benefit to not giving characters is that it completely down to you how many characters there are in the scene, it could just be one character or it could even be one character.

The symbolism of Love and Information could relate to how information bombardment can disrupt memory, privacy and feelings. It represents the private and public consequences of an eternally changing world. She also suggests that our feelings need to go towards our knowledge and not the other way round.