‘Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.’ Review: Caryl Churchill’s Enigmatic Imagination
9 / 10
For sheer fertility of imagination, there may be no dramatist writing today to match Caryl Churchill. Across a distinguished career spanning more than five decades, the British playwright has written about a vast array of subjects, from the evils of colonialism to the global financial system to the morality of human cloning. And with each work she seems, astonishingly, to find a fresh form, a newly minted theatrical vessel for her ideas. The four short plays currently on view at the Public Theater reveal the writer at her most economical—her works have become more concentrated in recent years—and often at her most provocatively enigmatic. These are plays that startle with their strangeness, but also leave you with much to ponder.
