A Mouthful of Birds

by Caryl Churchill, David Lan

A Mouthful of Birds is a 1986 play with dance by Caryl Churchill and David Lan, with choreography by Ian Spink. Drawing its themes from The Bacchae of Euripides, it is a meditation on possession, madness and female violence. (Wikipedia)

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

50 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

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

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely a difficult play to read, largely because it is a dance piece and so much of the play as such really depends on the physical performance. But it's also a difficult play because it is quite fragmented, and a lot of the vignettes aren't really fleshed out as full storylines, they give bits and pieces of info but leave a lot out of the written text.

There are some recurring themes, however, which get carried through the vignettes. One is the idea of transformation, especially from one gender to the other (and back again), which is picked up from Euripides' Bacchae. In Euripides, Dionysus is a pretty gender neutral character, which Pentheus mocks him for, but then later Pentheus allows himself to be dressed in women's clothing to spy on the Maenads. But there are also thematic transformations between the living and the dead, and between humans and animals--the latter also picked up from the Bacchae when Agave believes Pentheus is a lion and tears him to pieces. Which brings us to the next important theme: sparagmos and omophagia, which come from the Greek and refer to the ritual slaughter of a sacrifice by tearing it apart (sparagmos) and the ritual eating of the flesh (omophagia). This is most performed more directly in Bacchae than any other Greek drama, and the concerns about being torn apart, being eaten, eating, etc. run throughout A Mouthful of Birds. We have performative elements of madness in the play, working much like they do in Euripides.
https://youtu.be/uHWvCz3CI60

[Lillian Lippold · Rating 5 out of 5]

DAS MOUTHFULOFBIRDSMACHINE

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I imagine seeing the play performed would be a different experience, but simply reading the book was a bit bizarre. The surreal vignettes that make up the play are intriguing (big ideas of gender, identity, violence, love, etc.) but they feel incomplete. The stage directions that describe the dances in these scenes and in between them leave a lot to the reader's imagination. For example, what does it look like for Paul and the Pig to "dance dangerously"?

Weird but not unpleasant reading experience overall.

[Fee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes:

Vignettes punctuated by dance. Moments of tenderness amongst a descent into madness. Sparagmos. The rage that bubbles under the skin of women. Dark passions. Blood. A Bacchanal. A recognition and celebration of the abject. Possession. The malleability of gender. Shrouded. Visceral. Unreality. Raw female violence.

Desperate to see this performed!

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually saw the play and it was an experience. I was a freshman in college and it left quite an impression that's never gone away. Would love to see it again.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great play that I read about twenty years ago, that dealt with the idea of spirits and personality archetypes that posses us. Powerful stuff.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colour me impressed by the number of photos included.