Essay Database

Caryl Churchill Born in London on September 3, 1938, Caryl Churchill grew up in England and Canada. In 1960, she received a BA in English from Oxford University where she wrote three plays: Downstairs, You've No Need to be Frightened, and Having a Wonderful Time. After graduation, she began to write radio plays for the BBC including The Ants (1962), Not, Not, Not, Not Enough Oxygen (1971), and Schreber's Nervous Illness (1972). This genre forced Churchill to develop a certain economy …

…continues to develop, her plays seem to be growing more and more sparse and less and less inhibited by realism. In The Skriker (1994), she utilizes an associative dream logic which some critics found to be nonsensicle. The play, a visionary exploration of modern urban life, follows the Skriker, a kind of northern goblin, in its search for love and revenge as it pursues two young women to London, changing its shape at every new encounter.