SOURCE: Aston, Elaine. “Communities in Dramatic Dialogue.” In Caryl Churchill, edited by Elaine Aston, pp. 64–79, 114–15. Plymouth, UK: Northcote House, 1997.

In the following essay, Aston discusses the collaboration and research techniques Churchill employed while writing Fen, Serious Money, and Mad Forest.

Research has always been important to Caryl Churchill's theatre-making. In prefaces, introductions, afterwords and interviews where she discusses her work, Churchill cites sources and publications which have helped to shape her drama, and, in this way, she permits the reader access to the thinking and making process of her work and ideas.¹ Additionally, she also acknowledges her debt to group work, with companies such as Monstrous Regiment and Joint Stock, as detailed in the previous two chapters, and to directors, designers, and so on, who have collaborated with her in the theatrical process.

Research and the sharing of ideas underpin the three plays studied in this chapter in...