UNIT 3.

From Realism to Experimentation: British Theatre in the 1960s,

1970s, and 1980s
The Rise of Political Theatre.
Chapter 1 from Contemporary British Drama by Catherine Rees.

 What is political theatre?

The period studied in the field of political theatre in Britain goes from the late 1960s to the
1980s. Some possible definitions for “political theatre” such as Michael Patterson who defines
it as “a kind of theatre that not only depicts social interaction and political events but implies
the possibility of radical change on socialist lines: the removal of injustice and autocracy and
their replacement by the fairer distribution of wealth and more democratic systems”. British
political theatre is nearly always left-wing in emphasis and often overtly Marxist.

Critics and playwrights are surprisingly unified in their view that political theatre in Britain is
synonymous with socialism or Marxism, a “dominant reference for the development of a
radical oppositional theatre since the end of the Second World War” (Lambley 1992).

During the late 1960s and 1970s, power changed hands between the Conservative and Labour
party; however, socialist principles are not always well served under a Labour Government,
and both political parties failed to offer a “clear Marxist alternative”, so political theatre
involves and active stance against all conventional party politics in the search for a more
radical socialist revolution.

Political dramatists were hopeful of creating the possibility of radical change through theatrical
performance.

Edward Bond was extremely active in providing a political education for his audiences stating
that: “My plays are fundamentally political because they say you cannot change anything
unless you understand what you are doing”.

Theatre considered as a possible revolutionary force was also noted by those who would have
motivation for suppressing its radical potential. Howard Breton’s The Romans in Britain caused
much controversy when first performed for its juxtaposition of the Roman invasion of Britain
and the British military presence in the Northern Ireland. Some felt that taxpayers’ money
should not be financing such politically sensitive theatre. The new right-wing government
resorted to censorship of the arts under threats of the withdrawal of subsidy. No wonder that
plays produced during this time, often incited critical hostility.

 Some key dates – 1968 to 1980.

1968 was the year that politicised a lot of people. Bigsby claims “1968did see the birth of a
genuine socialist theatre” and Lambley cites the decade between 1968 and 1978 as an
important time for Marxist theatre, “a significant number of writers and workers in the
theatre” were profoundly determined in the direction of Marxist politics. Dan Rebellato says
that “writing history in terms of the present may simply reinforce conditions that obtain in the
present” reinstating prejudices. So, 1968 represented a critical year in the shaping of a
generation of political writers witnessing a series of radical changes and revolutions, the most
famously in May, when French workers and students went on strike and leading to a socialist
revolution. Mass protests against the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King

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and Robert Kennedy, mass civil rights marches, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the
Six-Day War in Israel among others, politized a new generation.

So, we can consider political theatre as starting in 1968.

Another key date is the end of this political theatre in 1980. If 1968 promised the blossoming
of greater social equality, increased workers’ rights and the presence of wider political protest
and engagement, the 1980s offered the country an altogether different political climate. The
revolution of 1968 was ended with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. A lack of
investment in the arts, a failure of the political Left, and loss of confidence in theatre as a
political arena were the result of this new era. British drama hasn’t found a language to deal
with the 1980s. David Hare and Harold Pinter found themselves at odds with the dominant
capitalist ideology of the Thatcher era. Hare and other left-wing playwrights felt themselves to
out of step with the times. Pinter’s career took a different turn in the 1980s since he became
much more involved with political playwriting including his later political phase (1983-1991).
During the 80s, Pinter’s plays saw a remarkable change, and, in general, the political climate of
the 41980s created a change in political playwriting. Moreover, the theatrical economy of the
era led to the undermining of radical political drama. The socialist revolution imagined in 1968
was in 1980 a distant memory, and radical theatre had been undermined in favour of
apolitical, big budget theatrical entertainment.

Edward Bond, David Hare, Howard Brenton, and Harold Pinter are heavily associated with
political engagement, although their styles and subject matter vary considerably.

 Edward Bond: Saved and its theatrical legacy

The abolition of stage censorship in 1968 was a significant political event. Bond’s play first
performed in 1965 was considered key in this abolition and in the passing of the Theatres Act
in 1968. Saved is most famous for its depiction of the abuse and stoning of a baby and was
refused a license for public performance. Plays had to be licensed first by the Lord
Chamberlain before theatres could open them to a paying public. Edward Bond refused to cut
the scene in which a group of young males torment and murder the child, protesting that this
scene was integral to the political purpose of the play. The Royal Court Theatre changed its
license to that of a private members’ club for which performances did not require a license,
which allowed the performance within the Court space. The controversy and the legal action
against the company was remarked upon in the press. The role of Saved in the process of
ending censorship was clear.

First critical press reactions were hostile. Irving Wardle in the Times describes the play as “a
systematic degradation of the human animal”. Although Bond did not provide the audience
with a clear message about the violence, he was explicit about the political and moral purpose
of Saved. In a extensive preface, “On Violence”, Bond outlines his political stance with a
broadly Marxist view. “Violence occurs in situations of injustice…violence flourishes under
capitalism”. “Violence is not a function of human nature but of human societies”. Bond’s
political commitment is explained by Penelope Gilliatt in the Observer: “…this is not a brutish
play. It is a play about brutishness, which is something quite different”

What is striking is the way Bond contextualizes the violence. Critical perception has shifted
over time allowing Bond’s politics helps explain the extremes of the play. Interesting points
emerge from the original 1965 reviews. Gilliatt, who offered a positive account, received

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threatening letters. This account perhaps anticipates some of the abuse often targeted at
women who express their political views on social media.

Moreover, the language use to describe the working-class characters is remarkable. The
Sunday Times describes the gang as louts and psychopaths but his worst condemnation is for
Pam, the baby’s mother, who is describes as a slut and a blonde little layabout. When the play
was revived in 2011 Pam was again described as promiscuous and as a shouting trollop.
Although Pam is certainly a neglectful mother, it is the male gang who kill the baby, not Pam,
and yet the critical anger seems targeted mainly toward her indicating a certain misogyny in
some mainstream theatre critics.

The public funding of the Royal Court, which is a non-commercial theatre, was another key
factor in 1965 to try to explain the “present angry atmosphere”. A socialist play performed at a
subsidised venue might well provoke a negative reaction from the right-wing press, but Bond
was capable of inspiring future generations and had a profound impact upon contemporary
British drama. Billington writes that the murder of the infant is “a terrifying scene, unmatched
in British drama until the advent of Sarah Kane’s Blasted. Sam Haddow charts the relationship
between the 1965 premiere and the 2011 revival arguing that the political landscape of 2011.
The summer of riots across Britain served as a mirror between the two periods. Billington
highlights the interconnectedness of the two periods and the political seriousness of the play.
“If you create an unjust society, in which those at the bottom of the heap are condemned to a
life of meaningless materialism, then you are simply layinj g up trouble for the future”.
Although in 1965 the press was not so inclined to consider Bond’s role as a political playwright,
this position has shifted over time. Itzin writes about Bond’s plays arousing a violently hostile
critical reaction, though they very quickly came to be acknowledged as ‘classics’”. In 2011
Saved is simply described as a masterpiece. As censorship was abolished critical opinion
toward controversial plays shifted moving from something to be feared or rejected to a rather
more celebratory acknowledgement. Bond became accepted as part of the British dramatic
mainstream, but his interest in engaging with that popularity waned. He did not want to
compromise his work in the direction of commercial pressures, and the artistic director of the
Royal Court described Bond as “the most difficult person I have worked with in 40 years”.
Despite Bond’s reluctance, he is regarded as a key figure in the establishment of political
playwriting.

 David Hare (and Howard Brenton): Plenty and Pravda – Politics takes centre stage.

Whereas Saved examines the lives and relationships of Britain’s poorest and disadvantaged
citizens, Hare’s political plays explored the practices of the establishment satirizing the
collapse of imperial institutions in the dying days of empire. Hare’s protagonists were not the
uncivilized and violent “thugs” of Bond’s plays, but the civil servants and CEOs of institutions in
states of flux or crisis. Plenty was his finest play. The post-war life of his protagonist, Susan
Traherne, is represented as the disintegration of her hopes, aspirations, career and marriage
and the disappointment of her experiences in the 1950s and 60s. Her marriage to a diplomat
allows her to dismiss the failures of foreign policy. Hare offers an ambitious and epic response
to the breakup of imperial institutions, a biting satire. The play premiered during the Labour
government of James Callaghan was associated with the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79 and
the failure of liberal and leftist values. Thatcher was soon elected PM and Hare’s play seemed
to echo the voices of disappointment that little had improved since the war. The play was
written in the dying months of the Calllaghan administration, with Mrs. Thatcher about to take

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the power. Socialism had failed again. Plenty is an indictment of the way idealism withers away
in the shadow of entrenched power.

The original production received mixed reviews. Many critics found it devoid of politics. For
Colin Ludlow, “the lack of stridency and its implicit rather than overtly argued social comment,
has led some critics to conclude that it lacks substance and has nothing to say”. Hare himself
comments that “the critics concentrate only on those things which confirm them in their own
prejudices, becoming spectacular demonstration of the play’s basic argument”. Plenty can be
interpreted as the critics’ own prejudices about the filed promises of socialism and a tendency
toward the nostalgia is mocked in it. The play attacked the politics of the 1950s and 1960s
through charting the collapse of an individual’s engagement with politics and society.

To determine whether Susan is “a gallant young woman” or “the most consummately

megalomaniac shrew to darken the stage since Shaw’s Cleopatra” or whether Susan isa strong-
willed dissenter, a monstrous destroyer, or apathetic madwoman, are questions that many
critics pose.

Critics reflecting on the 1978 production with the use of misogynistic language developed later
on in a desire to conclude whether or not she is sympathetic, that pervaded the reviews of the
1999 production. So, critical response has not shifted as significantly as we may think. Susan
(played by Cate Blanchett) is described in 1999 as an “unhinged and neurotic from the start”.
The words “hysterical, unhinged, neurotic and wild” and the rather misogynistic language of
the 1978 reviewers is the response of male critics and their anxiety about the portrayal of a
singular and dynamic woman in a central role. It is hard to imagine a similar male character
being described in these terms.

Although Plenty is regarded by theatre academics as a key political text, the play is not so
fondly regarded by the newspaper critics, that consider it a controversial play. Benedict
Nightingale attacks the politics of the play describing its account of history as “pretty
simplistic” and partial. Paul Taylor sees the play as “severely overrated”. Hare is described as
“priggish”.

Plenty divides the critics throughout the decades, now accepted in the canon of contemporary
British theatre, and regarded by many as one of the most important plays of the post-war
years. Yet, the play in performance continues to unnerve critics in the press, unsure to access
the politics of the play and the “strident” woman in the lead role.

Pravda, the second Hare play, is even more contentious for newspaper reviewers. It offers a
biting satire of the newspaper industry, which enjoyed little critical acclaim. Inspired by Rupert
Murdoch’s acquisition of British newspapers, the fictional Lambert Le Roux played by Anthony
Hopkins in 1985, explained Hare’s fury at the lack of independence of the British press. “Why
are the papers so willing to get into bed with government?”. Rather than the bleak and
dispirited tone of Plenty, with its focus on disillusionment and unfilled socialism ambition,
Pravda premiered in the mid-1980s, a time of fevered consumerism and an obsession with
accumulating wealth, spurred on Thatcher’s deregulation of the financial sector.

It has a satirical, morality-play structure to convey the grotesqueness of Thatcherite ideology.

The newspaper reviews of the production in 1985 were keen to correct what they saw as a
misrepresentation of the depiction of their industry, “an insult to many good journalist” for
Donald Trelford in the Observer.

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Others condemned the play’s comic overexuberance and political extremism, describing it as
“radical-chic agitprop”, “comic overkill” and “full of clichés”. Hare’s view of the journalist as a
spineless, professional toady, easily bought, exploited and sold by the forces of political
repression, did not resulted funny for critics. Hare wrote an article in response to the
newspaper roasting in which he argues that “Critics are not shocked by the characters, but by
the fact that our portrayal of them was at once greeted and acclaimed as the truth by such
proportion of the audience, which it must have been a disconcerting experience”.

The ”leftist spoofing of Thatcherism” played well with politically liberal audiences at the
National Theatre. As a political satire, it shows the ambition and greed of 1980s excess and
opportunism. The play stands as a mirror to Thatcherite policies of individualism and
deregulation. Although the play is undeniably “leftist”, its political satire is irrefutably evident.

Pravda is a product of its time responding to the confusion and despondency of liberals in the
1980s. its revival at Chichester in 2006 marked a repetition of the concern at the portrayal of
the press with the mantra: “the authors despise journalists”. Billington claims to be struck by
its prophetic accuracy about a world in which newspapers have become instruments of
corporate business rather than expressions of national identity. His comments about the
relevance of the play for audiences in the early 21 st century are telling. New Labour’s courtship
of the Murdoch press was not popular amongst the more traditionally “leftist” members of the
party, but it certainly helped them seal victory in 1997. Therefore, Hare’s complaint about
newspapers getting into bed with the government in the 1980s was still relevant in 2006 as a
reflection of the morality of press. The political commitment of the play’s subject matter is
clear then. Arts council funding and public subsidy of the arts, which is not politically neutral,
and much political theatre of the 1980s was eradicated in favour of more commercial
successful ventures. A lack of arts subsidy leads to the necessity of producing plays containing
between two and four characters being this an ideological outcome, since the representation
of society required larger casts. In this way, plays which overtly criticise the function of society
can be effectively silenced.

The 1980s might have marked an end to epic “public” political playwriting. Now, Harold Pinter
entered into a new phase of political activity and writing when his political credentials were
just about to emerge.

 Harold Pinter – The political absurd

The 1980s were identified as a significant decade in politicising playwrights due to the
dominance of Thatcher’s government. The beginning of Pinter’s political phase in the 1980s
also saw the birth of a new style of play for him – brief, violent and overtly political or
described as “nasty, brutish and incredibly short”. Pinter’s apparent change of direction is
regarded unfavourably by the critics. Levenson suggests that Pinter’s early career “held him
aloof from political discourse”. Visser argues that Pinter’s play “are universally acknowledged
to belong to the genre of ‘absurd drama’”. The author himself disagrees, but Pinter’s plays saw
a remarkable change, and so did his attitude toward his critics.

Pinter’s classification as a playwright of either the absurd or politics is the key issue at stake.
Having distinct phases, from absurdism in the 1950s and 60s to overtly political dramas
inspired by global human rights violations in the 1980s, he and other critics however disagree
that the phases are quite so distinct. The development of Pinter as a political playwright was a
gradual process rather than an abrupt change, and that violent persecution is something he
has always represented on stage.

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Watt argues that Pinter has always been broadly political because all his work from the late
1950s onwards “has concerned itself with the attempts of characters, institutions, or regimes
to stifle questioning or oppositional voices”. His outspoken denunciation of specific political
injustices also set him at odds with a dominantly Conservative public opinion which had
elected Thatcher to power and was not ready to hear dissenting voices.

Pinter’s most political plays are One for the Road (1984) and Mountain Language (1988), both
address political persecution, torture and incarceration and last no more than 20 minutes. An
early review of Mountain Language takes issue with Pinter’s use of language, the “Pinter
Pause”, and the short length of the play is also condemned. One for the Road was also found
with hostile reviews.

Both plays were revived in 2001 and although by that time Pinter’s reputation as a significant
playwright was secure, the critics were not much impressed with the work. The juxtaposition
of Pinter’s standing toward the end of his career and the briefness of his plays were not so
much liked.

However, One for the Road is described by Charles Spencer to be “a mesmerising, terrifying,
brilliantly controlled piece, to the contrary for Nightingale, who describes it in the Times as
“propaganda for amnesty International”.

But the critical commentary from the 2001 performances has in common the tendency to see
the term “political” as a form of abuse and to critique the plays negatively because of their
engagement with the political landscape.

Both plays place the action of the violence and subjection in British contexts through the use of
British names and idioms and in the case of Mountain Language with the soldiers in British
Army uniform. Pinter is able to visually and linguistically demonstrate that human rights
abuses can take place anywhere.

Mountain Language was inspired by the Turkish attempt to supress the Kurdish language, but
Pinter was also issuing an awful warning about the evil potential of the Great Thatcherite
Repression. In a review of One for the Road in 2002, Nightingale remarks that Pinter has taken
“a grim glee in suggesting that the atrocities we associate with South America and East
European dictatorships could very well occur in places where the accents and cultural
references are English”. To dismiss someone’s political beliefs as a “rage” is perhaps to
diminish or belittle them – casting the political activist as hysterical or unrealistic – and these
reviews also reinscribe Pinter’s political agenda as far-fetched or implausible.

Pinter cannot please the critics who see his political grandstanding as overreaction and absurd.
His plays make his political sincerity clear, but his public persona and the newspaper response
to his overtly political plays highlight a conflict between Pinter and his critics of
misunderstanding and hostility.

The classification of Pinter’s work leads some critics to use the term “political” as a term of
criticism; and plays that suggest that political tyranny might be closer to Britain than we might
believe, cause some critical resentment. Pinter’s position as a playwright of politics is,
therefore, controversial in itself; and the plays resulting from his political convictions, even
more so.

 Conclusion

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It is surprising how little the content of the reviews of the plays is different over the years,
despite the playwrights themselves having been elevated to writers of the theatrical canon.
This is testament of the enduring controversy of plays situated so dominantly in the “political”
sphere. All the plays examined were subjected to hostile reviews, focusing not on the quality
of the performance or production, but mainly on the political commitment of the writers. The
plays explored are defiantly left-wing, anti-establishment and socialist in outlook, and this
rebellious nature is not always well tolerated by the ore conservative press. The playwrights
explored here have two things in common: they are all political writers and they are also all
male.

The Gendering of Political Theatre: Women’s Writing and Feminist

Drama.

Chapter 2 from Contemporary British Drama by Catherine Rees.

 Introduction – Political, theatrical and cultural contexts.

Political playwriting in the 1970s and 1980s might appear to be dominated by male writers, the
monopoly of the middle-class white man. This chapter aims to examine two female
playwrights – Sarah Daniels and Caryl Churchill – who offered critiques of female experience in
the 1980s. the emergence of feminist theatre and the prominence of second-wave feminism
protesting for equality across Britain were key as was the subjugated experience of women in
society more widely. The plays discussed here were certainly political in their probing of
gender roles in society, and inequalities they felt they were subject to in bot the theatre
establishment and the wider public sphere.

Let us try to give a definition of the term “feminist theatre” in an uncontroversial way. Helene
Keyssar offers some:
Productions and scripts characterised by consciousness of women as women; dramaturgy in
which art is inseparable from the condition of women as women: performance that
deconstructs sexual difference and thus, undermines patriarchal power; and the creation of
women characters in the subject position.

Women’s theatre can be defined in part as plays about women (women’s experience in central
roles) by women, that deconstruct patriarchal authority as subject matter as well as in the
construction and structure of those plays.

Plays by women, about women, rose in prevalence in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. the
socialist idealism of the left-wing playwrights is one reason for this rise. As theatre-makers
became more politically conscious, women writers felt angry about their unequal status, so
they too became politically active. Women’s theatre was underpinned by socialist values and
beliefs. Gillian Hanna, actor and founder of the feminist theatre company Monstrous
Regiment, makes it clear that feminism and socialism are interlinked: “there will not be a
socialist revolution without feminism and that a feminist revolution will not be achieved
without socialism”.

Peacock claims: “From the mid-70s, the aim of women’s theatre groups in Britain was to
change women’s status as creators and spectators of theatre, to supplant the patriarchal
concerns and discourses of mainstream theatre and to displace the roles traditionally allotted

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to female performers”. A complete overhaul of the traditional structures and narratives of
British theatre and the establishment of a new and radically different way of representing
female experience on the stage. According to Elaine Aston, women writers and theatre-makers
sought to offer an alternative – a form of theatre more egalitarian, more open, and more
supportive to offer audiences a vision of more democratic possibility. This revolution was
underway in theatres and in British universities. In 1985, Warwick University held “the British
academic women’s theatre conference” which consisted of a “rethinking of theatre history”.
The pieces of feminist writing on drama between 1970 and 1994 approached one thousand.
Theatre-makers offered new plays to provoke debate and change, and theatre academics
critically re-evaluated the British theatrical canon through a feminist lens, suggesting ways in
which women’s roles in theatre have been historically marginalised, stereotyped and under-
developed.

Between 1982 and 1983 just 11% were written by women and just six plays written by women
in this period were performed on main stages. Towards the end of the decade the vast
majority of plays written by women are staged in small-scale venues, so, women’s playwriting
was not always visible in mainstream theatre. Lizbeth Goodman suggests that, as feminist
theatre is usually performed on the “fringe”, the dynamic of the development and
performance of the play is radically altered. Feminist theatre then claims its own means of
production, often a more liberated, collaborative and democratic initiative at odds with the
patriarchal structures of traditional mainstream theatre. The very making of feminist theatre
echoes the values of the feminist movement. Feminist theatre is often created in a much more
collaborative fashion, with all members of the company involved and active in the process.
This abolition of hierarchical structures in theatre making reflects the feminist movement’s
drive to overthrow patriarchal structures more widely.

Gillian Hanna also said that “Women get excited by being part of a larger movement, while
men like to thing they’re acting independently”. Hanna’s views about the different approaches
of men and women and about the working practices of women’s theatre are from being old-
fashioned today and are interesting. Women as part of creative collectives offer their
experiences and actively participating in activities outside of their usual domestic roles created
a sense of emancipation and creation. The feminist theatre movement was part of a much
wider feminist movement and was focused on women’s lived experience in the home,
campaigning for reproductive rights and better laws on violence against women with positive
images of women as emancipated and independent rather than marginalised, victimised and
sexualised.

As suggested by Elaine Aston, the second-wave feminist movement was also preoccupied with
examining the ways in which history was predominately ‘his’tory told by powerful men to
secure and maintain their power by marginalising women’s place in those stories. Women’s
theatre offered contested and disordered versions of history. Female playwrights seek to
disrupt the temporality, dialogue, linearity of narrative, plot and/or character to convey more
authentically what they consider to be the inimitable characteristics of female perception.

Women’s subject matter does not necessarily make a feminist play unless challenges to form
and content converge in creating a play about feminine emancipation to dismantle established
patriarchal structures of history and politics and to disrupt the theatrical experience and to
fracture the audience’s understanding of history as an ordered, natural or sequential process.

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  What is “women’s” and “feminist” theatre? Some problems with classification and
terminology

Women’s drama was frequently at the margins of British theatre performed in pubs,
community centres and studio spaces. Although 52% of the population is female and more
women than men are theatregoers, the majority of critics are white, middle-aged, and middle-
class men to trace the fortunes of plays which were either lauded or condemned and to
examine the impact of that reaction to the reputation of the playwright. Some theatre critics
have been hostile to plays in the 80s created by overtly feminist writers which addressed and
explicitly feminist agenda. However, in examining critical reaction, it is also crucial to explore
the terms and categorisations offered by critics. The term “feminist” itself is contested and
controversial and not always welcomed by the female writers themselves.

Analysis of the term “feminism” is here applied to the second-wave “women’s liberation
movement” of the 60s and 70s, but the term is not universally accepted. Mainstream theatre is
not explicitly gendered as male, even though it is statistically mainly written by men. Only
women and their work is marked with a “gender”; male output is normalised and is thus
invisible. These labels can be used to marginalise, so both Daniels and Churchill have at times
rejected the label “feminist”. Daniels’ comments analysing the term and the way in which it
may be used by theatre critics carry negative and unfashionable connotations of this word, so
heavily associated with the 1970s and 1980s. however, in 1979, Churchill was just as reticent in
accepting the label. Daniels states that: “I was a feminist when I started writing but I didn’t
start writing thinking, I’m going to be a feminist dramatist”.

The problem for her was that “the same critics are there, the same men who haven’t forgiven
Masterpieces. However much I change, deviate and move on as a writer, I’m not allowed to”.

This distinction between being a feminist and being a feminist writer is important because if
critics conflate the two, they risk assuming that women who claim the label “feminist” can only
write plays from that position.

Such reluctance to revise any critical classification and labelling of female dramatists may lead
to a ghettoising of women’s writers, ensuring that they are permanently marginalised and only
encouraged to produce work that continues to reinforce a pre-existing understanding of how
that writer might be assessed. A belief that women writers can only write about feminist
concerns.

These labels either in celebration or dismissal are applied to both Daniels and Churchill. A
theatre scholar writing in 2010 has no problem proclaiming that she views Daniels as
“Principally positioned critically as one of the foremost feminist theatre writers. However,
scholar Elaine Aston cautions on this matter arguing that an “overview of reactions to Daniels’
theatre points to gender-bias in the way in which her work is reviewed”. Male theatre
reviewers may be using gender politics as a stick with which to beat her. Despite Churchill’s
protestations that she does not align consciously with the label of feminist, most critics would
agree with viewing her as “uncompromisingly feminist”. Nevertheless, over time, both
playwrights have been assimilated into a “feminist theatre”.

Barleet and Innes comment in the 21st century that when Churchill and Daniels wrote their
most explicitly feminist work, demonstrate some solidifying of their reputations over time as
feminist playwrights, regardless of their own view on the matter.

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There is a paradox that represents a key challenge to critical perceptions of women’s writing
and to the tradition of collective writing. If women are to be more dominant in British theatres,
must they start to emulate masculine working practices, transcend collective editions of
“women’s work”, and start to offer more individual plays that chime with the normative
expectations of mainly male theatre critics? This dispiriting conclusion has to some extent
been the reality.

 Where have all the feminist gone?

Peacock points out that “the political climate of the 1980s, with its focus on individualism and
capitalism, did little to support the feminist cause: “Post-feminism, extreme individualism and
the emergence of the successful career women who were keen to deny any association with
feminism left little room for the claims of sisterhood and solidarity”.

Thatcher’s policies of commercialism helped undermine much feminist theatre. For Goodman,
“Thatcher’s government is opposed to subsidy because subsidy is an attempt to take art out of
the marketplace, and this government seems hell-bent on turning everything into a
commodity”. The withdrawal of funding for the arts led to the erasure of more politically
radical plays. Moreover, the term itself was also influential in the increasing unpopularity of
feminist theatre. So many women seem to have been alienated from the word because the
patriarchs, especially in the media, have so debased and besmirched the term. Daniels reflects
“there does seem to be a feeling that we’re living in a ‘post-feminist’ society”.

The identity politics discussions of the mid-90s undermined or clouded the more radical
feminist agenda of earlier decades and post-feminism started to become a more fashionable
way to negotiate gender politics. Of course, the feminists did not go anywhere – both Churchill
and Daniels continue to write plays – but the political climate and their own work has shifted,
and that the angry, militant and urgent questioning of more radical feminism, so maligned in
the press. By using the term “feminism” in a derogatory or pejorative fashion, critics
undermined the credibility of these practitioners.

 Sarah Daniels – The emergence of a feminist “masterpiece”

Daniels’ Masterpieces (1983) was a commercial hit. The play came from a radical feminist
perspective that savagely attacked patriarchal social dominance, all forms of misogyny and the
power of pornography to objectify women and place them in a position of vulnerability to
male violence. The play is inspired by the writings of American feminist Andrea Dworkin,
whose Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) argued that pornography is the abuse of
women and part of a system of power men exert over women, including all forms of violence
and rape.

Three sets of heterosexual couples discuss various gender politics, including misogynistic jokes,
and the three men are typically depicted ad either actively participating in the pornography
industry, guilty of committing rape or casually sexist. The central protagonist, Rowena,
encounters some pornography and watches the infamous “snuff” film Snuff (1976), which
ostensibly depicts the real murder and mutilation of an actress but was revealed to be a hoax.
However, Masterpieces makes no reference to its veracity and it is assumed in the narrative to
be footage of a real murder. So shocked about the terrible victimisation and brutalisation of
women, Rowena pushes a man who approaches her late at night in front of a passing train and
is tried for his murder.

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The play was instantly provocative. Aston describes it as her “most controversial”. Peacock
states that it is “probably the most contentious example of a radical feminist viewpoint in the
women’s drama of the 1980s”.

The critical response was rather hostile since Daniels is one of the very few women playwrights
in Britain to have reached mainstream audiences, and just for this reason that the critical
response to her work is so pertinent.

The reviews of the original production reveal a fascinating snapshot of gender identity and
politics in the early 1980s. Reviewing for the national press was mainly a male activity and
Britain was dominated by a right-wing press, so, an unsympathetic hearing was largely to be
expected.

This play adopts a left-wing approach to gender division, sexism and sexual violence. Many
critics pint Daniels as a crazed feminist man-hater or claim that the play had little grounding in
reality, or both. The language used to make these critiques also reveals implicit gender bias
and prejudice.

Female reviewers reacted to Daniels’ work with warmth and shocked recognition. Daniels
responded to the discrepancies in 1984 by asserting that she was not especially concerned by
male antipathy: “Men are not equipped to judge our work”. From an essentialist approach to
theatre making that men and women are fundamentally biologically different, Daniels think
that men cannot understand or appreciate the way in which women create theatre.

But given that male critics can and have praised work by other female writers, what was it
about that create a particularly negative reaction?

Billington argues that “Ms Daniels’ apparent lumping together of all men as rancid exploiters”.
Wardle agrees that “the play suggests all men are beasts” and offers “unspeakable male
stereotypes”. Saddler concludes that the play is “disappointing” and “could be so much more
forceful if it didn’t descend so easily into cliché and stereotyping”.

Gabriele Griffin confirms that “the play is ostensibly “realist” and yet the male characters are
stereotypical parodies”.

However, Giles Gordon, writing in the normally conservative Spectator, surprisingly and
logically remarks that “The women’s roles, understandably, are more fully realised in the
writing than the men’s simply to redress the balance of centuries”. To complain about the lack
or “realism” in the male characters is therefore, according to this critic, to miss the point. The
men are deliberately marginalised in this play, and the male critics who complain about this
are simply making Daniels’ point for her – centuries of dramatic history have caused men to
become complacent about their place on the stage.

Robin Thornber writes that he “can’t say I enjoyed this play. I can say better than that: It is long
time since an evening at the theatre disturbed me so deeply, to make you see the world in a
new light, Daniels demonstrates her point with irrefutable logic and devastating clarity”.

Barbara Goward offers a rather scathing appraisal of Daniels’ sexuality and the lack of
relevance of the play to her own life.

Moreover, the critical response let us see the misogynistic and sexist language, regardless of
the positivity of the review. Giles Gordon was progressive enough to understand that the
depiction of male characters is necessarily underdeveloped, and yet concluded his review by

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describing the actor playing Hilary as “scrumptious”. Many other critics uses hyperbolic terms
to assess the play such as “hysterical”, “strident” “rabid”, etc., terms commonly assigned to
criticism of women, particularly misogynistic. The tone of some of these words suggests a
rather uncontrolled blast of overemotional language as women have been historically accused
of delivering, incapable of representing themselves with the assumed balance and objectivity
associated with masculine expression. The general tone of these views (all by men) is that this
play is an attack on them. So, by defending themselves through negative reviews, they use this
sexist language, either objectifying the female actors or by using language designed to belittle
or dismiss Sarah Daniels as a serious playwright.

This view of Masterpieces as “passionate” and “emotional” rather than unmediated, has
damaged its long-term reputation. Daniels is considered a crazed and unhinged radical lesbian
feminist who, because she is incapable of offering a subtle or nuanced political standpoint, has
instead blasted her audiences with a subjective and impassioned piece of theatre. This was the
conscious or unconscious intention of the male critics: to marginalise Daniels’ theatrical vision
and political stance by ridiculing her work and thus silencing her critique.

Masterpieces offers modern audiences a challenge. The play’s lack of balance, so derided by
the critics, des feel outdated today, and the critical hostility has cemented Daniels’ reputation
as uncompromising and unnuanced. However, as Aston’s comments make clear, Daniels’
message about gender inequality was finding an audience, albeit one in the auditorium rather
than the newspapers.

 Caryl Churchill and the re-gendering of history

Churchill worked with Monstruous Regiment in the 1970s and 80s. this theatre company was
organised around a collective exploring and representing women’s experiences and structured
democratically without an artistic director.

Cloud Nine

It has a complex and non-linear structure, stretching across centuries and continents. The first
act is set in colonial Africa, a patriarchal husband and father, his timid wife and bullied
children. Local servants are subjugated and exploited, and other British figures include a
homosexual explorer and a sexually liberated single woman, both perceived “deviant”
behaviours and “Othered” and condemned by the rigid yet hypocritical patriarch.

Act two sees the action relocated to London 1979, although only 25 years have passed for the
characters. The once timid wife is exploring her newfound sexual freedom, the children are
now adults and also questioning their restrictive gender roles. The play juxtaposes the limited
opportunities and roles available for women with oppressive and violent imperial rule.

Dimple Godiwala puts that ”the play explores the parallels between the colonization of races,
the patriarchal subjugation of gender and the culturally determined gendering and sexuating
process”. The play is epically Brechtian and also includes cross-casting. For example, Victoria,
the young daughter in act one, is so silenced and marginalised that she is represented by a
doll. Betty, the wife, is played by a man, and Joshua, the black servant, is played by a white
actor. The play troubles gender and ethnicity roles provoking audiences to explore their own
prejudices and expectations.

The relationship between the two acts is thus critical to an understanding of the play.
Contemporary reviews of the 1979 production were generally positive. Wardle, so critical of

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Masterpieces, enjoys Cloud Nine describing it as “a fine piece” and a “triumph”. Victoria Radin
reports that it was not just critically acclaimed but also commercially successful, enjoying
“huge popular success at the Royal Court”. However, the subject of the play’s comedy was not
always appreciated by the critics. Billington finds it “curiously hollow”. The comedic treatment
of the subject matter did not appeal to all in 1979.

The two-act structure defies the laws of nature by spanning over a hundred years but only a
couple of decades in the lives of the characters. This inventive Brechtian theatrical structure
also adheres to feminist principles of breaking hierarchical linear progression seeing history as
constructed rather than inevitable, inviting critics to “pick a half” and to decide which they felt
worked most successfully, lessening the intended critique of patriarchal creation of historical
narrative.

Jack Tinker appears to misunderstand the intentions of the play, its political ideology and
theatrical structure.

Other reviews dismiss the meaning of the play referring to Guardian readers as a homogenous
liberal entity and using pejorative prejudices about feminism. This tries to undermine the
intention of the play. The mainstream press is still unsure about how to approach what they
perceived as a radical feminism agenda in the theatre, and the default position tends to be one
of confusion, ridicule and therefore dismissal.

Whether celebratory or dismissive of the politics, critics of 1979 were unanimous in their
understanding of the play as furthering feminist ideologies. In more recent years, however,
academic scholars have revisited Cloud Nine and have sought to interrogate some of the
assumptions made. Janelle Reinelt writes that “what may have looked like a highly provocative
and subversive play in 1979 may actually have been capable of being assimilated into a theatre
apparatus able to contain its most radical elements”. For example, a lesbian kiss in act one is
actually performed by a man dressed as a woman and so it remains visually heterosexual.

Godiwala’s reading in 2004 focuses on the representation of the ethnicity rather than gender
politics. She argues that Cloud Nine constitutes a “racial whitewashing as we get a sexually
liberated white Britain which negotiates with and subverts the dominant paradigms of family,
but just because a play is set in a colonial period, des not make for an anti-colonial ideology of
critique”.

The play may not be as progressive in the 21 st century as it might have been perceived to be in
1979. Reinelt agrees that many of the key tenets supporting Churchill’s work are diminished by
post-feminist and post-structuralist thinking. For this matter, it is important not to fix such
readings as permanent and unchanging, since critical response becomes more flexible and
malleable to changing public perceptions and expectations. Cloud Nine might have felt
revolutionary in the late 70s, but it does not speak to audiences in quite the same way today.

Top Girls

Written in 1982, it also makes use of historical counterpoint and a two-half structure. The
central character, Marlene, organises a celebratory dinner party to toast her promotion at
work to which she has invited a series of historical characters, all women who were punished
or abused by the patriarchal system throughout history. The play then jumps to a
contemporary setting and follows Marlen’s triumphs in the workplace, as well as difficult
relationships with her sister and estranged daughter. The play explores women’s struggle

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against discriminatory patriarchy throughout history, juxtaposing real women’s suffering with
Marlene’s strident ambition in the early 1980s. The play is emblematic of Thatcherism and
consumerism, analysing the rise of women in managerial roles, but also reflecting on the
sacrifices they must make in order to succeed in a male-dominated business arena. Aston
argues that the play “shows the dangers of feminism without socialism”. Marlene’s success has
not empowered or improved the lives of women more generally. Marlene has played no part
in the upbringing of her daughter. Top Girls offers a pessimistic view in terms of the
celebration of feminism, since Marlene is unsympathetic, and her success was not entirely
celebrated due to her ruthlessness, greed and the neglect of her daughter, Angie.

The play is divided into a non-naturalistic first half followed by a more realistic contemporary
conclusion. The purpose of the fracturing of the historical action was to offer a Brechtian
critique of historical progression. The play is usually cast with seven female actors, and no
men. Aston suggests that “Top Girls affords a further pleasure for the female spectator in so
far as it represents an all-female community, played by an all-female cast”.

Aston highlights another source of critical confusion: is Top Girls really feminist at all? We
should ask whether to read Marlene and the play as a celebration of women’s achievements or
a critique of bourgeois feminism. The play does assert that women have a right to equal
representation in business and that they shouldn’t be discriminated against due to their
gender. However, the play is also unclear as to whether or not the struggle for equality at work
is entirely celebratory. Marlene is condemned for her brash materialism and rejection of her
sister’s socialist values. She is held up as a mirror for Thatcher, a model of her. Critics also
recognised that women’s gradual commercial success comes at a price. The play is ambivalent
about this feminist position, and although Marlene may be largely condemned, there is still
some sympathy for the impossibility of her position.

The problems facing women in the workplace in 1982 are not even yet resolved. Churchill was
offering a nuanced portrait of the ways in which the challenge of competing with men in
industry was dehumanising and dispiriting. The play also critiques the rampant consumerism of
1980s Britain.

But Churchill’s status as a feminist writer remains unchallenged, despite her own ambivalence
about the term. Churchill herself notes that her success is perhaps due to her status as a
woman. Although the feminist struggle was far from over in the 1990s, the emphasis had
arguably shifted from a critical battleground to a critical canonisation. However, there was still
much progress to be made.

 Conclusion

Feminist practices and theories in the 1970s and 1980s broke various theatrical moulds.
Feminist theatre companies actively changed the structure of plays and theatre making
dismantling hierarchical structures and fracturing theatrical action by disordering historical
progression. These plays were broadly political but engaged with gender identity most
strongly. It has also put into question that some sections of the press were overtly
misogynistic.

“Feminist” remains a controversial term, the word appears to have been used in the early 80s
to be synonymous with negative criticism, and, by definition, a feminist play must be a flawed
play.

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Playwrights sought to distance themselves from the term, as it became a stick to beat them
with, not an umbrella to shelter dramatists with a shared political perspective. The critics who
used the term with hostility helped to make the concept of “feminism” rather unfashionable.

“Post-feminism” became a more common notion. However, feminist theatre still exists and
that it is increasingly being called that. The #MeToo movement has once again popularised and
galvanised feminist thinking and has led to an explicit re-examination of sexual misconduct
within the theatre industry. Language and hegemony common in the 80s and the gender bias
within both the theatre industry and the critical press. It is striking to note how much things
have changed but also how much remains unchanged.

Bibliography:

Rees, Catherine. Contemporary British Drama. Red Globe Press, 2020.

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