Caryl Churchill was born in London just before the start of the Second World War; when her family emigrated to Canada, in 1948, her native city was still marked by deprivation, and the cultural and emotional habit of soldiering on. Churchill returned to England to go to a women’s college at the University of Oxford in 1957, when sexual politics were becoming something of an issue. Wherever Churchill went, history followed. So what else could she become but a playwright, a recorder of newsreel realities? This year features two Churchill revivals: in October, Yale Rep will put on the wrenching “Owners” (1972), and, now through Aug. 4, at Atlantic Stage 2, PTP/NYC presents “Serious Money” (1987), directed by Cheryl Faraone. These plays center on the fantasy of money and power being redemptive. The occasional awkwardness of Churchill’s writing—she’s a latter-day Brecht without all the famously unlauded female collaborators—works best when her ideas grow out of situations, rather than the other way around. That’s when we really stop and take in all that rigor and invention. ♦
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture
Scholars have known for centuries that Greek and Roman marble figures were routinely covered in bright paint. Why does the myth of their whiteness persist?
Why Are Americans Still Uncomfortable with Atheism?
Why are Americans still uncomfortable with atheism?
Letter from Missouri
Claire McCaskill’s Toughest Fight
A red-state Democrat faces the fight of her life.