INNOVATION IN GENRE AND STYLE IN CARYL CHURCHILL’S DRAMATURGY

Abstract

This study investigates innovation in genre and style in Caryl Churchill’s dramaturgy, with particular attention to how she transforms traditional dramatic conventions through postmodern and feminist aesthetics. The research focuses on selected plays, including Top Girls, Cloud Nine, and Serious Money, analyzing their structural fragmentation, genre hybridity, and stylistic experimentation.
Using a qualitative interpretative approach grounded in postmodern theatre theory and feminist literary criticism (Lyotard, 1984; Butler, 1990), the study demonstrates that Churchill consistently rejects linear narrative and realist representation. Instead, she constructs fragmented, non-linear, and polyphonic dramatic forms that challenge conventional expectations of theatre.
The findings reveal that genre and style in Churchill’s dramaturgy function not only as artistic techniques but also as instruments of ideological and social critique, exposing issues such as gender inequality, capitalist structures, and power relations. The study concludes that Churchill’s innovative dramaturgy significantly expands the boundaries of modern theatre and redefines the relationship between form and meaning in dramatic writing.