Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - But not that
T2 - Caryl Churchill’s political shape shifting at the turn of the millennium
AU - Aston, Elaine
PY - 2013/6
Y1 - 2013/6
N2 - The article focuses on Caryl Churchill’s This Is a Chair (1997) and Far Away (2000) to analyse Churchill’s political shape shifting at the turn of the millennium, when ideological resistance to capitalism has all but disappeared. Positioning This Is a Chair as a critical-political turning point in Churchill’s repertoire, I argue that René Magritte’s visual thinking about the arbitrary relation of words and things is seminal to Churchill’s struggle to create a political-theatre canvas. In relation to Far Away, I demonstrate how Churchill’s critique of global capitalism involves a dissolve – the appearing, yet disappearing, traces of the Brechtian dramaturgy of her earlier playwriting, and a renewal of the epic through a composition that is both experiential and elliptical. Ultimately, the article argues that the need to impress on audiences the urgency of dis-identifying with capitalism informs Churchill’s political perspective through a dialectic shift from Herbert Blau’s “imminence of a ‘not-yet’” to the negative of “but not that.”
AB - The article focuses on Caryl Churchill’s This Is a Chair (1997) and Far Away (2000) to analyse Churchill’s political shape shifting at the turn of the millennium, when ideological resistance to capitalism has all but disappeared. Positioning This Is a Chair as a critical-political turning point in Churchill’s repertoire, I argue that René Magritte’s visual thinking about the arbitrary relation of words and things is seminal to Churchill’s struggle to create a political-theatre canvas. In relation to Far Away, I demonstrate how Churchill’s critique of global capitalism involves a dissolve – the appearing, yet disappearing, traces of the Brechtian dramaturgy of her earlier playwriting, and a renewal of the epic through a composition that is both experiential and elliptical. Ultimately, the article argues that the need to impress on audiences the urgency of dis-identifying with capitalism informs Churchill’s political perspective through a dialectic shift from Herbert Blau’s “imminence of a ‘not-yet’” to the negative of “but not that.”
KW - Caryl Churchill
KW - This Is a Chair
KW - Far Away
KW - Magritte
KW - negative dialectic
KW - political theatre
U2 - 10.3138/md.0521
DO - 10.3138/md.0521
M3 - Journal article
VL - 56
SP - 145
EP - 164
JO - Modern Drama
JF - Modern Drama
SN - 0026-7694
IS - 2
ER -