Caryl Churchill

Marlene thinks the eighties are going to be stupendous. Her sister Joyce has her doubts. Her daughter Angie is just frightened. Since its premiere in 1982, Top Girls has become a seminal play of the modern theatre. Set during a period of British politics dominated by the presence of the newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Churchill’s play prompts us...

Marlene hosts a dinner party in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of Top Girls employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: Isabella Bird (1831-1904) - the adventurous traveller; Lady Nijo (b1258) - the mediaeval courtesan who became a Buddhist nun and travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who as Dulle Griet...

In Traps, a set of characters meet themselves and their pasts to create "plenty of sinewy lines and joyous juxtapositions" (Plays and Players). Vinegar Tom "is set in the world of seventeenth-century witchcraft, but it speaks, through its striking images and its plethora of ironic contradictions, of and to this century" (Tribune). Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is set during the...

Churchill Plays: 2 includes four groundbreaking plays by Caryl Churchill, each offering a unique and compelling theatrical experience. Softcops transforms the philosophy of Foucault into a music-hall performance and Victorian freakshow. As noted by the Times Literary Supplement, "theatre and history combine to give such intelligent fun." Top Girls gathers five remarkable and not-so-remarkable women from history for a dinner...

The plays in this volume represent the best of Churchill's writing up to and including her emergence onto the international theatre scene with Cloud Nine. The volume also contains a new introduction by the author as well as short prefaces to each play. When referencing the title, avoid putting it in quotes or speech marks.

With an introduction by Graham Whybrow, literary manager of the Royal Court Theatre, this anthology collects the defining plays of the 1980s and 1990s in one volume. Top Girls: 'The best British play ever from a woman dramatist' (The Guardian) Hysteria: 'One of the most brilliantly original and entertaining new plays I have seen in years' (The Sunday Times) Blasted:...