Plays 2: Softcops / Top Girls / Fen / Serious Money

by Caryl Churchill

"Softcops renders the philosophy of Foucault as a music-hall turn and Victorian freakshow "theatre and history combine to give such intelligent fun" —The London Standard

"Top Girls brings five great and less-than-great women from history together for a dinner party and "has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert"—Sunday Times

Fen scrutinizes the lives of the low-paid women potato pickers of the fens (in Eastern England) and "the playwright pins down her poetic subject matter in dialogue of impressive vigour and economy"—Financial Times

Serious Money is a satirical study of the effects of the Big Bang - "Pure genius…the first play about the city to capture the authentic atmosphere of the place."—Daily Telegraph

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, British Literature, Womens

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 1990

About the author

Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, dramatisation of the abuses of power, and exploration of sexual politics.[1] She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and one of world theatre's most influential writers.

Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. From A Mouthful of Birds (1986) onwards, she began to experiment with forms of dance-theatre, incorporating techniques developed from the performance tradition initiated by Antonin Artaud with his 'Theatre of Cruelty'. This move away from a clear Fabel dramaturgy towards increasingly fragmented and surrealistic narratives characterises her work as postmodernist.

Prizes and awards

Churchill has received much recognition, including the following awards:

1958 Sunday Times/National Union of Students Drama Festival Award Downstairs
1961 Richard Hillary Memorial Prize
1981 Obie Award for Playwriting, Cloud Nine
1982 Obie Award for Playwriting, Top Girls
1983 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (runner-up), Top Girls
1984 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fen
1987 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year, Serious Money
1987 Obie Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
1987 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Serious Money
1988 Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
2001 Obie Sustained Achievement Award
2010 Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Plays

Downstairs (1958)
You've No Need to be Frightened (1959?)
Having a Wonderful Time (1960)
Easy Death (1960)
The Ants, radio drama (1962)
Lovesick, radio drama (1969)
Identical Twins (1960)
Abortive, radio drama (1971)
Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen, radio drama (1971)
Owners (1972)
Schreber's Nervous Illness, radio drama (1972) – based on Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (written 1972)
The Judge's Wife, radio drama (1972)
Moving Clocks Go Slow, (1973)
Turkish Delight, television drama (1973)
Objections to Sex and Violence (1975)
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) [7]
Vinegar Tom (1976)
Traps (1976)
The After-Dinner Joke, television drama (1978)
Seagulls (written 1978)
Cloud Nine (1979)
Three More Sleepless Nights (1980)
Top Girls (1982)
Crimes, television drama (1982)
Fen (1983)
Softcops (1984)
A Mouthful of Birds (1986)
A Heart's Desire (1987)[18]
Serious Money (1987)
Ice Cream (1989)
Hot Fudge (1989)
Mad Forest (1990)
Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991)
The Skriker (1994)
Blue Heart (1997)
Hotel (1997)
This is a Chair (1999)
Far Away (2000)
Thyestes (2001) – translation of Seneca's tragedy
A Number (2002)
A Dream Play (2005) – translation of August Strindberg's play
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006)
Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (2009)
Love and Information (2012)
Ding Dong the Wicked (2013)
Here We Go (play) (2015)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Ch...

Reviews

[Bartelsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could see these performed, probably much easier to follow.

[CP :-) · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 different churchill plays:

Softcops: Short one-act about the absurdity of police surveillance and public punishments. Pretty decent, and fun but feels very short

Top Girls: First act is about a bunch of real and fictional historical women having a dinner together. The rest is about a poor mother and her middle school aged daughter’s relationship as the daughter tries to find herself. Very interesting, not my fave

Fen: All very rural in a field/plantation setting while the workers and townspeople interact. Very slice of life, fine, didn’t find it super engaging, but was the easiest to visualize

Serious Money: The longest play in the book to read. All about sleazy finance people being sleazy and also kind of a murder mystery and also almost the wholeee thing rhymes. Super cool, very fun and very fun to read.

[Mike Leitch]

I'd put off finishing this collection with Fen because, honestly, the first page with a Japanese Businessman delivering a monologue in broken English seemed...problematic. Even Churchill, one of the best playwrights there is, can have her dud moments. As much as Top Girls is a standout classic that lives up to its reputation, Serious Money and Softcops were a bit too dense for me, which is my issue with Churchill's plays I like least.

But I love Top Girls, Far Away, Vinegar Tom and Mad Forest, so I was still willing to trust her and read the rest of Fen, with the awareness that it was written in 1983 and not very often revived which, based on my immediate concern, was probably because of its datedness.

This is more on the dense side than accessible but the racist opening sets the wrong tone and can be easily skipped. Fen is a mournful play showing the increased influence of corporate control on farming through the people whose live revolve around their work on the fen.

Val represents this decline, haunted by a bad decision that means she'll never be accepted by the community and everything she dreams of becomes further and further out of reach. That's as close to a plot as I can manage because most of the play is classic Churchill scenes of innocuous conversations that incite you to look fir subtext. This is what makes her work sometimes inscrutable but then you get magic moments like Bell's monologue about a deal her grandfather made with a corpse, morbid and fairytaleesque with a political edge.

So, not my favourite Churchill but not without interest, I'd say its only really for my fellow Churchill obsessives.

[mica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember why I first decided I needed to read these plays - I think I came across a quote from Top Girls somewhere and decided based on that.

Regardless, I found these plays to be pretty interesting and funny satires, although I'm fairly certain most of the humour went right over my head, since I didn't really experience the political and social upheavals of the 1980s, let alone the political and social changes in the UK in the 1980s.

All credit to Churchill for her rhyming throughout Serious Money though, holy shit.

[John Stammers · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOFTCOPS -- 2/5

TOP GIRLS -- 5/5 (I LOVED THIS PLAY SO MUCH, IT'S AMAZING!!!!)

FEN -- 4/5

SERIOUS MONEY -- 2.5/5 (Really slow and boring for the first half, some redeeming moments here and there in the humour. It gets much better towards the end.)

[Aaron Berlau · Rating 4 out of 5]

churchill is so amazing. these were so interesting. i love her blending of historical events and research with current (to her time) events. she still manages to write relevant and moving stories. i feel like this series of hers had plays that resonated with me a lot more than her first series

[Tem MeGill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating only for Top Girls, but fuck it I ain't care for the others.

[Kate]

DNF 50%

Couldn’t get passed Fern. Very racially insensitive and racial slurs used.

[Emilia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, not too much to say. I liked Top Girls, that’s about it

[Nadja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only read Top Girls.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Top Girls *** -- The idea of using a job-placement office for women to explore the inequities women face in the workforce is brilliant. It gives Churchill a platform to explore the issue from multiple perspectives.

And Churchill provides a complicated portrait. Marlene has succeeded at becoming the office manager over a male c-worker, but she is presented as shirking responsibilities to others and to family. There is a price to pay – and to be paid by others – for one’s success in the business world – for men and for women.

The opening scene with historical women (some fictional) left me a bit flat. It’s interesting, but I would have preferred to hear more stories from the clients. That seems like a wonderful wellspring to tap into a lot of issues and perspectives. While inequality in the workforce remains a problem, the challenges faced by women in the 12th and 13th century are still rather foreign to us.

Overall, though, a very good work.


Serious Money **** From what I can tell, this is a challenging work to view on the stage, and reading it may be even more challenging. Scenes are packed with multiple voices and activities creating a whirlwind of sound and action.

I gave the play an extra star just for experimental chutzpah. In addition to the complicated action and dialogue, it goes in and out of rhymed couplets which I liked. Churchill has always pushed the boundaries of language and voice, and that’s one of my favorite things about her.

Reading this is not for the faint of heart. It’s a gnarly, complicated, confusing work.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read "Top Girls" and "Fen."

Was a bit disappointed in "Top Girls." Act I was reminiscent of "A Voice of My Own" by Elinor Jones. That first Act also didn't seem to flow well into the structure of the rest of the play. Perhaps it's better in performance.

Loved "Fen." I was in a production of it in grad school. Really lovely, haunting, beautiful play.

[melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a review of Top Girls which suggested that this feminist gem was politically dated, but I disagree. Women "making it" in a man's world in a manly way is still an issue (Hillary's pant suits?) and a problem. Churchill is arguing for a new ideal of feminism, and I am with her.

[Rea Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

These were so clever , my favourites were top girl and fen! I did like serious money though as it was so fun to read with all the rhyme, really cleverly written would love to see some of these done live

[Diane]

all of these ROck.
Easy reads

[József · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just Serious Money

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Softcops fantastic, Top Girls fantastic, Fen and Serious Money somewhat dated but admirable

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't into Serious Money, but Softcops, Top Girls, and Fen are all genius.