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Plays 4: Hotel / This is a Chair / Blue Heart / Far Away / A Number / A Dream Play / Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?
The fourth volume of the collected plays of one of the best playwrights alive.
Written over a period of ten years and evincing an extraordinary range of topics and techniques, this fourth volume of Caryl Churchill's collected plays confirms her standing as a playwright who is 'amongst the best half-dozen now writing' (The Times).
This volume includes:
Hotel
This is a Chair
Blue Heart
Far Away
A Number
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?
A Dream Play
Written over a period of ten years and evincing an extraordinary range of topics and techniques, this fourth volume of Caryl Churchill's collected plays confirms her standing as a playwright who is 'amongst the best half-dozen now writing' (The Times).
This volume includes:
Hotel
This is a Chair
Blue Heart
Far Away
A Number
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?
A Dream Play
309 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2008
12 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Caryl Churchill
94 books227 followersCaryl 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 19, 2018
In The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America, Caryl Churchill is described in the appendix as "The World's Greatest Living Playwright." This fourth volume of her collected plays is my favourite, and also goes a long way to proving that claim. It is in this period she sets about reducing theatre to its core components, and exposes its contradictions. She refines what has become her signature style, half/unfinished sentences that still manage to carry the weight of her drama. THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVING PLAYWRIGHT.
SIDE NOTE: when are we getting volume 5?
Hotel: 3/5 - I'm not discouraged by the fact this is totally impenetrable on the page because I'm familiar with the other plays in this collection. Hotel is a brilliant concept, the first part is 8 hotel rooms superimposed on top of each other, and the second is fragments of a diary left in a hotel room. An opera possibly wasn't the best way to communicate that in terms of language.
This is a Chair: 4/5 - This is such a good idea. Short scenes that have nothing to do with their titles. It asks, why can't theatre actually get to grips with stuff, but just as importantly, how do you do it in the first place?
Blue Heart: 4/5 - Two short plays, each hell-bent on their own destruction. In both someone is seeking somebody else, in both the ground is continually pulled away in every conceivable sense.
Far Away: 5/5 - I think it's bloody genius. How exactly does a world go from putting a child to bed, to beating a truck-full of refugees, to every conceivable demographic at war with each other?
"It's not as if they're the engineers, the chefs, the children under five, the musicians."
"The car salesmen."
"Portuguese car salesmen."
"Russian swimmers."
"Thai butchers."
"Latvian dentists.
A Number: 4/5 - How she manages to convey so much in a fraction of a sentence is beyond me. Particularly when you have three different versions of what is essentially the same person.
A Dream Play: 2.5/5 - eh... not the most interesting. Whatever is radical about this play doesn't come through in this translation. Its production, directed by Katie Mitchell may well have done. And I prefer it when she uses half sentences.
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?: 4/5 - Probably Churchill's most explicitly political play of the twenty-first century (excepting Seven Jewish Children,) where a man - any man, from any country - falls in love with America, which starts to deteriorate as the man is exposed to the wide-ranging effects of American foreign policy, but he can't leave.
SIDE NOTE: when are we getting volume 5?
Hotel: 3/5 - I'm not discouraged by the fact this is totally impenetrable on the page because I'm familiar with the other plays in this collection. Hotel is a brilliant concept, the first part is 8 hotel rooms superimposed on top of each other, and the second is fragments of a diary left in a hotel room. An opera possibly wasn't the best way to communicate that in terms of language.
This is a Chair: 4/5 - This is such a good idea. Short scenes that have nothing to do with their titles. It asks, why can't theatre actually get to grips with stuff, but just as importantly, how do you do it in the first place?
Blue Heart: 4/5 - Two short plays, each hell-bent on their own destruction. In both someone is seeking somebody else, in both the ground is continually pulled away in every conceivable sense.
Far Away: 5/5 - I think it's bloody genius. How exactly does a world go from putting a child to bed, to beating a truck-full of refugees, to every conceivable demographic at war with each other?
"It's not as if they're the engineers, the chefs, the children under five, the musicians."
"The car salesmen."
"Portuguese car salesmen."
"Russian swimmers."
"Thai butchers."
"Latvian dentists.
A Number: 4/5 - How she manages to convey so much in a fraction of a sentence is beyond me. Particularly when you have three different versions of what is essentially the same person.
A Dream Play: 2.5/5 - eh... not the most interesting. Whatever is radical about this play doesn't come through in this translation. Its production, directed by Katie Mitchell may well have done. And I prefer it when she uses half sentences.
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?: 4/5 - Probably Churchill's most explicitly political play of the twenty-first century (excepting Seven Jewish Children,) where a man - any man, from any country - falls in love with America, which starts to deteriorate as the man is exposed to the wide-ranging effects of American foreign policy, but he can't leave.
April 3, 2021
Experimenta mucho con elementos formales, pero el texto de fondo me ha dejado completamente frío.
https://liblit.com/caryl-churchyl-bos...
https://liblit.com/caryl-churchyl-bos...
January 21, 2023
Hotel
Honestly just an amazing read. Thinking of this as an opera, peering into eight private rooms, and imagining all the overlapping dialogue in opera. Not needing too many words, having "scraps" of words, the brain naturally fills in gaps so it's clever to work with that function.
This is a chair
Already reviewed but after reading the other titles it really solidified by sense of Caryl Churchill and I'm inspired by her political activist heart that she channeled through creativity, “This is a chair is a series of impressive subjects that a play might address and the scenes don’t address them.”
Blue heart
Didn't really like this but am interested in the unconventional way she uses language and words. It was my first introduction to the word "macguffin"- "an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself"
Far away
The uncertainty and ignorance, Harper being responsible of Joan, lying to Joan saying there isn't blood and then saying it was the dog's blood. Joan saw children in the shed, "Harper: you've found out something secret. You know that don't you? .... Something you must never talk about. Because if you do you could put people's lives in danger." Joan is then made to believe her uncle is helping the children escape. How can we trust a government who lies and then installs fear to suppress and keep people silent?
Joan's job is to make hats, which end up being worn by prisoners on their way to execution. She and Todd talk about the corruption of the company, not able to talk about it, afraid of losing their job. "I didn't know whose side the river was on," relating to sides of war.
A number
Thought I'd like this more than I did. I related to the loss of autonomy/individual identity in how now everyone are just copies e.g. tryhards following after Kar-Jenners
A dream play
I really loved A Dream Play, there are so many similarities in her writing to Eugene Ionesco. The issues of communication, life being repetitive and empty "WRITER No, words are useless. I've always known what I write doesn't say what I mean so when I get praised I feel ashamed". In 8. the teacher and officer going back and forth about logic reminds me of the Logician in Rhinoceros
I'm learning from Caryl Churchill - her use of anachronisms "a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language term and customs from different time periods."
Agnes listens to the complaints and watching the misery of humankind. There is the theme of class struggle in the mistreatment of the maid and "the help." She wears the stage door keepers coat. "I know it's disgusting because it's full of people's problems but I want to get even more. I'd like to soak up all the crimes you know about and the false imprisonments and abuse."
The solicitor goes on about human pain and problems:
"I'm in the middle of a murder trial now, but that's all right. Do you know what's worse? Divorce. When you think how they started full of wonder and love, and they go on for pages and pages accusing each other and making themselves out to be right. And if someone just kindly and simply asked them what it's really about they wouldn't know."
The theme of the destruction of traditional marriage. The perfect image has met a shocking reality.
The lovers who kill themselves because the bliss won't last. The absurdity of meaningless bickering. The solicitor and Agnes end up enmeshed in marriage where they deal with dull repetition and poverty. "What if we get tired of each other?" "we'll have a baby." They describe domestic inequity and domestic violence in the character Lina. "WRITER Look at her now. Five children, hunger, beatings. All that beauty destroyed by duty."
Drunk enough to say I love you
Wow. Excellent to end with this collection because it leaves you wanting more of Caryl Churchill. Drunk enough to say I love you says it all really - despite all the violence of US imperialism there is still romanticism and nostalgia for its culture.
It's incredible how deep she does into US Imperialism, American Propaganda and the military industrial complex with Uncle Sam. At first people thought Sam was Bush but with all her examples of American Policy she shows it goes before and after. She talks about "stopping the banana cartel", Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, collapsing the rice industry in Haiti, destabilizing the economy of countries or creating proxy wars by weaponising groups to eventually gain power over those countries. Even the way US changes sides always based on economic gain and political agenda: "SAM Saddam's let us down, he's no longer a good guy so"
The play describes the control of foreign democracy, and how the propaganda machine will create a common enemy to be feared (China, communism)
"SAM: so now we need to prevent some elections"
"GUY saves having to overthrow"
"GUY because no one can blame us for what the Chinese"
As well as manufactured consent and control of democracy based on public opinion:
"GUY and they vote the way you want, that is so"
"SAM because you have to appeal to their deepest"
"GUY appealing to the women's vote"
Israel and US holding hands and dropping bombs, of course her award was taken away and accused of anti-semitic rhetoric (ad-hominem) by calling out the settler colonialism and genocide of the Israeli government.
Not to mention the manipulation of science, the suppression of information, government negligence towards climate change or suppressing the risks in regard to scientific discoveries/technologies/advancement:
SAM natural disasters
GUY not coping very
SAM surprise
GUY predicted and there is an element of manmade
SAM stop fucking going on about
GUY carbon
SAM junk science.
GUY report here from the
SAM rewrites
GUY 'serious threat to health'
SAM delete
GUY 'growing risk of adverse'
SAM delete
GUY 'uncertainties'
Honestly just an amazing read. Thinking of this as an opera, peering into eight private rooms, and imagining all the overlapping dialogue in opera. Not needing too many words, having "scraps" of words, the brain naturally fills in gaps so it's clever to work with that function.
This is a chair
Already reviewed but after reading the other titles it really solidified by sense of Caryl Churchill and I'm inspired by her political activist heart that she channeled through creativity, “This is a chair is a series of impressive subjects that a play might address and the scenes don’t address them.”
Blue heart
Didn't really like this but am interested in the unconventional way she uses language and words. It was my first introduction to the word "macguffin"- "an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself"
Far away
The uncertainty and ignorance, Harper being responsible of Joan, lying to Joan saying there isn't blood and then saying it was the dog's blood. Joan saw children in the shed, "Harper: you've found out something secret. You know that don't you? .... Something you must never talk about. Because if you do you could put people's lives in danger." Joan is then made to believe her uncle is helping the children escape. How can we trust a government who lies and then installs fear to suppress and keep people silent?
Joan's job is to make hats, which end up being worn by prisoners on their way to execution. She and Todd talk about the corruption of the company, not able to talk about it, afraid of losing their job. "I didn't know whose side the river was on," relating to sides of war.
A number
Thought I'd like this more than I did. I related to the loss of autonomy/individual identity in how now everyone are just copies e.g. tryhards following after Kar-Jenners
A dream play
I really loved A Dream Play, there are so many similarities in her writing to Eugene Ionesco. The issues of communication, life being repetitive and empty "WRITER No, words are useless. I've always known what I write doesn't say what I mean so when I get praised I feel ashamed". In 8. the teacher and officer going back and forth about logic reminds me of the Logician in Rhinoceros
I'm learning from Caryl Churchill - her use of anachronisms "a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language term and customs from different time periods."
Agnes listens to the complaints and watching the misery of humankind. There is the theme of class struggle in the mistreatment of the maid and "the help." She wears the stage door keepers coat. "I know it's disgusting because it's full of people's problems but I want to get even more. I'd like to soak up all the crimes you know about and the false imprisonments and abuse."
The solicitor goes on about human pain and problems:
"I'm in the middle of a murder trial now, but that's all right. Do you know what's worse? Divorce. When you think how they started full of wonder and love, and they go on for pages and pages accusing each other and making themselves out to be right. And if someone just kindly and simply asked them what it's really about they wouldn't know."
The theme of the destruction of traditional marriage. The perfect image has met a shocking reality.
The lovers who kill themselves because the bliss won't last. The absurdity of meaningless bickering. The solicitor and Agnes end up enmeshed in marriage where they deal with dull repetition and poverty. "What if we get tired of each other?" "we'll have a baby." They describe domestic inequity and domestic violence in the character Lina. "WRITER Look at her now. Five children, hunger, beatings. All that beauty destroyed by duty."
Drunk enough to say I love you
Wow. Excellent to end with this collection because it leaves you wanting more of Caryl Churchill. Drunk enough to say I love you says it all really - despite all the violence of US imperialism there is still romanticism and nostalgia for its culture.
It's incredible how deep she does into US Imperialism, American Propaganda and the military industrial complex with Uncle Sam. At first people thought Sam was Bush but with all her examples of American Policy she shows it goes before and after. She talks about "stopping the banana cartel", Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, collapsing the rice industry in Haiti, destabilizing the economy of countries or creating proxy wars by weaponising groups to eventually gain power over those countries. Even the way US changes sides always based on economic gain and political agenda: "SAM Saddam's let us down, he's no longer a good guy so"
The play describes the control of foreign democracy, and how the propaganda machine will create a common enemy to be feared (China, communism)
"SAM: so now we need to prevent some elections"
"GUY saves having to overthrow"
"GUY because no one can blame us for what the Chinese"
As well as manufactured consent and control of democracy based on public opinion:
"GUY and they vote the way you want, that is so"
"SAM because you have to appeal to their deepest"
"GUY appealing to the women's vote"
Israel and US holding hands and dropping bombs, of course her award was taken away and accused of anti-semitic rhetoric (ad-hominem) by calling out the settler colonialism and genocide of the Israeli government.
Not to mention the manipulation of science, the suppression of information, government negligence towards climate change or suppressing the risks in regard to scientific discoveries/technologies/advancement:
SAM natural disasters
GUY not coping very
SAM surprise
GUY predicted and there is an element of manmade
SAM stop fucking going on about
GUY carbon
SAM junk science.
GUY report here from the
SAM rewrites
GUY 'serious threat to health'
SAM delete
GUY 'growing risk of adverse'
SAM delete
GUY 'uncertainties'
June 17, 2025
Smart, Sharp, Needs effort to comprehend in full
I am a new reader of Caryl Churchill so after finishing her plays I had to read more to understand certain dialogues. However, this does not make her writing any less desirable to read. To the contrary this challenge makes her plays more interesting. One really have to search deep and concentrate to grasp the total meaning.
I am a new reader of Caryl Churchill so after finishing her plays I had to read more to understand certain dialogues. However, this does not make her writing any less desirable to read. To the contrary this challenge makes her plays more interesting. One really have to search deep and concentrate to grasp the total meaning.
September 12, 2023
Blue Heart. Far Away. A Number. Reading those three plays feels like staring into the heart of modern British playwrighting.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews