Vinegar Tom

by Caryl Churchill

Paperback Samuel French, Inc. June 2004

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Classics, School, Feminism, Historical Fiction

65 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, dramatisation of the abuses of power, and exploration of sexual politics.[1] She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and one of world theatre's most influential writers.

Her early work developed Bertolt Brecht's modernist dramatic and theatrical techniques of 'Epic theatre' to explore issues of gender and sexuality. From A Mouthful of Birds (1986) onwards, she began to experiment with forms of dance-theatre, incorporating techniques developed from the performance tradition initiated by Antonin Artaud with his 'Theatre of Cruelty'. This move away from a clear Fabel dramaturgy towards increasingly fragmented and surrealistic narratives characterises her work as postmodernist.

Prizes and awards

Churchill has received much recognition, including the following awards:

1958 Sunday Times/National Union of Students Drama Festival Award Downstairs
1961 Richard Hillary Memorial Prize
1981 Obie Award for Playwriting, Cloud Nine
1982 Obie Award for Playwriting, Top Girls
1983 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (runner-up), Top Girls
1984 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fen
1987 Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year, Serious Money
1987 Obie Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
1987 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Serious Money
1988 Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play, Serious Money
2001 Obie Sustained Achievement Award
2010 Inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Plays

Downstairs (1958)
You've No Need to be Frightened (1959?)
Having a Wonderful Time (1960)
Easy Death (1960)
The Ants, radio drama (1962)
Lovesick, radio drama (1969)
Identical Twins (1960)
Abortive, radio drama (1971)
Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen, radio drama (1971)
Owners (1972)
Schreber's Nervous Illness, radio drama (1972) – based on Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution (written 1972)
The Judge's Wife, radio drama (1972)
Moving Clocks Go Slow, (1973)
Turkish Delight, television drama (1973)
Objections to Sex and Violence (1975)
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976) [7]
Vinegar Tom (1976)
Traps (1976)
The After-Dinner Joke, television drama (1978)
Seagulls (written 1978)
Cloud Nine (1979)
Three More Sleepless Nights (1980)
Top Girls (1982)
Crimes, television drama (1982)
Fen (1983)
Softcops (1984)
A Mouthful of Birds (1986)
A Heart's Desire (1987)[18]
Serious Money (1987)
Ice Cream (1989)
Hot Fudge (1989)
Mad Forest (1990)
Lives of the Great Poisoners (1991)
The Skriker (1994)
Blue Heart (1997)
Hotel (1997)
This is a Chair (1999)
Far Away (2000)
Thyestes (2001) – translation of Seneca's tragedy
A Number (2002)
A Dream Play (2005) – translation of August Strindberg's play
Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (2006)
Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (2009)
Love and Information (2012)
Ding Dong the Wicked (2013)
Here We Go (play) (2015)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caryl_Ch...

Reviews

[Freya]

"I'm not a witch. But I wish I was. I'd make wax men and melt them on a slow fire."

This went from zero to a hundred REAL REAL QUICK and that was the whole POINT oh my god thank you for today's dose of feminist theatre.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Crucible, but about the people actually effected by witch-hunts: women.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't care if Caryl wanted the songs to be didactic if they are literally objectively shit. I wish people would stop comparing this to The Crucible when they are about completely different witch trials, and to say this is 'The Crucible but feminist' is kind of...the antithesis of feminism. Let this work stand alone. This is far more about hysteria as assigned to the individual by the cold, calculating professional man, rather than the communal hysteria in The Crucible. I found this easy to read, and it raised some interesting themes, though I can't lie sometimes it read like Caryl discovered what feminism was like, two days ago. I appreciate it is from the 70s but I don't know whether it really offers anything to modern day discussion of feminist theory. And the songs took me out every time they came up.

[Eilidh Fyfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Good themes, witch text that actually focuses on the women, fancy song time, make it a musical.

[Mihriban Zengin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The innocence of a woman does not matter in the eyes of the patriarchal order because they will find something to blame anyway.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely time and I enjoyed the way CC plays and folds about witch hunts, seemingly to respond or develop a feminist iteration of The Crucible (though I do feel Churchill skates around Miller and I'm undecided as to whether that's to her benefit).

A strong and malleable play that's worth the time with

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but only because I'm picky.

[sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

odd but very funny at points

[Aya Ebrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caryl Churchill made it clear that she wrote a play about witches with no witches in it; all the women accused of witchcraft are innocent but could women really ever be innocent in that era?
Goody, the witch finder’s assistant says in a scene
“How she cries the old liar, pretending it hurts her.” so basically if you don’t cry you’re a witch and if you do you’re pretending.
“Packer: … Maybe there’s others will speak against her and let us know more clearly what she is.” Again, this was after Henry Packer the witch finder was pricking Alice (it’s a way to find whether or not she’s a witch) so when Alice didn’t bleed he couldn’t just say maybe she’s innocent? and not a witch? so if you don’t bleed you’re a witch and if you do he just hasn’t found your evil spot and maybe there will be another evidence against you.
And there was another scene when Packer and Goody was looking for the devil’s mark on Susan, and when they couldn’t find it they just said that “the devil can take marks off” so it doesn’t really matter you’re a witch anyway.
Being witch did not always mean a woman with a crystal magic ball and calling out for her imps, mostly it was just women who were found unconventional and unfit for the society.
Another idea tackled in this play is how women were so dependent on men and that marriage was the safest way to live. “Ellen: You get married, Betty, that’s safest.” It was a way of survival that even women who suffered domestic violence thought it better to live with a husband who would beat her instead of not having a husband at all. In this scene Joan is talking to her daughter Alice saying “ If we’d got a man we’d be better off.” but Alice contradicts her saying “ you weren’t better off, mum, you’ve told me often, you’re glad he’s dead. Think how he used to beat you.” but her mother would go on saying that at least they had food to eat.
Women were oppressed to the point that they eventually they would believe what they’re being told and think of it as the truth; Susan is a product of that oppression as she eventually comes to believe that she was witch but she just didn’t know it.
Each woman in the play is victimized for a different reason, for instance, Margery for her ignorance, Susan is utterly dependent upon her husband and tries to please him even if it would harm her, Alice was found unconventional for the society as she is a woman with a child but with no man, so the society sees her as a “whore.”
What really makes this work about witches different is that it is written not from the persecutor’s point of view but from the perspective of those who are accused of witchcraft. The perspective of the DEFEATED.
It is a true feminist masterpiece!

[Henry Hoekstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful play displaying the horrors of patriarchy in addition to biblical manipulation. Very applicable in today’s world and church.

[Abi · Rating 4 out of 5]

the crucible, but make it camp

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Looks at women in the 17th century who were accused of being witches. Powerful and I would love to see it on the stage. My copy including a back story and details of the collaboration aswell as staging of it.

[Bailey Tolentino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot more than I expected to. While the scenes can be uncomfortable, that’s kind of the point; and they lead well into the songs (which are at the end of multiple scenes) and create interesting feminist motifs which can still be relevant today.

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I wrote this in a dream - every single thing I’ve ever thought is here

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Churchill. Let's have a love affair, you and me. Vinegar Tom marks Churchill's first dip into collaboration and it is such a wonderful product of that. She wrote the first draft in a few days and then passed it off to a theatre company who took it and played with it and wrote music to the songs and then she came back and there must have been such wonderful discussions and she added in a character and oh! Yes, let's look at the epidemic of witchcraft, not through the lens of actual witchcraft, but through the eyes of people who were defining what witchcraft was. It was all so petty. After reading this play, I was walking around yesterday doing some of the not so strange things I sometimes do like taking off my flip flops in the rain because they were too slippery and walking barefoot up the street, or talking to a particularly funny looking dog or beating the side of a bus and shouting curses at it for cutting me off on my bike or having unmarried sex with my boyfriend and you know what? You guys? I would totally be hung for being a witch! I would! I have very little doubt about that in my mind. Another time, another place. I. Would be. Burnt. That is terrifying. And also what excites me so much about the possibility of doing this play.

[Mahaley Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love, love, love!! Looking at gender and power dynamics through the lens of a 17th-century witch hunt. Small reminders of the Scarlett letter. Every woman has felt this way at some point in their life. Can't wait to discuss this in class.

*Edit* After discussing in class i love this book even more! its words and commentary are even more poignant sense Roe v Wade was overturned. everyone should read this play!!

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

'little clay puppet like a tiny baby not big enough to live and we crumble it away'.

[Akın · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those that don't know, Caryl Churchill is part of a theatre movement known as Brechtian or Political Theatre. In such plays, the Aristotelian understanding of drama (imitation of life) is discarded and the fictional aspect of the story is emphasized. Cross-gender/race acting, songs, disengaging and undetailed environment and characters etc. are all means the playwright makes use of to establish alienation effect. The playwrights aimed to arouse thought and intelligence instead of emotions and immersion; however, they also aimed to arouse angry feelings against the political realities they were trying to show.

Caryl Churchill draws attention to lots of things in the play, namely the lack of solidarity in feminist movements, however I will only focus on the portrayal of the essentialist understanding of women. In Scene Six, for example, The Doctor's (which is a symbol for male professionalism) diagnosis of Betty is Hysteron, a term dating back to Hippocrates, meaning an imbalance in the humours caused by excessive blood in the womb. It's simply menstruation. The Doctor refers to this condition as "a woman's weakness". Hystera is the Greek word for womb, and I think it is highly likely that Hystera is understood by Ancient Greeks as the essence of the woman. Now, remember how we use the word hysteria - to refer to excess of emotions and madness. There's also a Latin idiom, hysteron proteron: "a figure of speech in which a phrase that should come last is put first" (Wikipedia). Hysteron also carries meanings such as "the latter", "the after", "the second". So, you see, throughout history of civilization, there are lots of words, arguments, constructs to prove the so called inferiority of women as such. Whether it be fantastical and religious stories or rationalization or technical understanding of the world, the means don't matter as long as they are useful in demonizing and oppressing women. The means may vary but the ends are all the same.

On a personal note, I am not quite fond of Brechtian Theatre, as I find it to be extremely reactionary. Politics is not a brand new thing in dramas, even Aristotle regarded dramas as tools for ensuring a climate of peace in the city, or "polis" in Greek. To speak clearly, drama is fundamental to Polis, and Polis (politics) to drama. Even though art is not seen as a medium but a way to discharge energies, art holds radical potential as it dates even further back than the emergence of cities. Art's radical potential doesn't lay in its political attitude, but in its anti-political attitude.

[Esther :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

„They were gentle witches
with healing spells.
They were desperate witches
with no way out but the other side of hell.“

This play - I had no idea what it was about when I started reading it, and now I‘m glad I went in without knowing the subject.

It‘s set in the middle of the 17th century in England, and the main theme is the persecution of „witches“.
And how „witchcraft existed [only] in the minds of its persecutors“, yet another way to take the autonomy from women, to eliminate those „on the edge of society, old, poor, single, sexually unconventional“ and to demonise old herbal medicine.
The author herself discovered in the process of writing this play „the extent of Christian’s teaching against women“ and saw the „connections between medieval attitudes to women and continuing attitudes to women in general.“

There are quite a few characters: a girl who has a child without a father and is seen as a witch, a woman who doesn’t want to get married and is seen as a witch, a woman who practices herbal medicine and is seen as a witch, a woman who had miscarriages and is seen as a witch, … and of course there’s the people persecuting them, the one‘s who are scared of the witches, who blame them for the bad things in their lives (a dead cow, a bad crop,…), all heavily influenced by the Christian beliefs of the time.

In the end the following questions arise:

„Look in the mirror tonight.
Would they have hanged you then?
Ask how they’re stopping you now:
Where have the witches gone?
Who are the witches now?
Ask how they’re stopping you now.“

It makes you think about which groups in society are blamed nowadays, and which beliefs are still stopping us from being true to ourselves, because the Christian teachings that demean women might not be as prevalent today (and even frowned upon by Christian’s themselves), but misogyny and society’s expectations play a huge role even now, and things women were hanged for centuries ago still hold them - us - back today.

[Alfie Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started reading this as the introduction evening for the next show is in 5 days. It’s very interesting, very feminist and I’ve got a feeling that every one of the male roles is going to be quite an insufferable character, but that’s the way the story is to be told! Jack is a seemingly big part, he is married to Margery but wants to get with Alice, who’s about 15-20 years younger than him. Alice is struggling with wanting a man so she can get out of the city but also doesn’t want to marry anyone she doesn’t actually want (as is not common for women of the time). Her mother, Joan, is a drunk and begs to Jack and Margery for things all the time. Margery is married but clearly struggling under her husband’s (and society’) expectant hand. The setting is quite ominous and quiet, feels personal and very oppressive.

-

Read more, starting to really appreciate it now, it’s very horrific but very raw in the way it expresses it’s violence to women. Joan and Alice have been expected as witches, even by Susan, Alice’s friend. Ellen, the one who have them potions to help them, gave Susan one to kill her unborn baby. Now Packer the witchfinder and his assistant Goody have pricked Joan and are expecting Alice and possibly Susan? Still got my eyes on Jack as he’s a villainous and sick man, and he would be a greatly different part for me to try out. While he is vile, it’s important to tell how horrific these women’s lives were. I’m excited to finish it.

-

I dark and hitting representation of the witch trials and history’s villainising of women, from the perspective of the women themselves. Leaves you shocked at how people could ever be treated like that. But as one of the songs says, it’s always easier to blame a people to get rid of the reminders of how hard life really is. And women have been a constant victim of this.

I look forward to putting this show on, it is an ever-relevant story to tell. I am looking at Jack still as the character to go for, as it’s a new thing to try for me, but also the villainy is hard but necessary to tell the story.

[Cori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this play. A lot. I adored the themes, the writing, the story, the fact that it has songs throughout, that it contains present day &, um, past day? While reading it I found myself intrigued by how it might be staged. How a production of it might look. I found that Churchill hit on so many of the struggles of women in a patriarchal society. Women and sex, women and power, women and class, women and age, women and motherhood, women and marriage, women as property, etc.

This play portrays a story that takes place in a patriarchal and classist society and tells the story of life directly affected by that patriarchal and classist society, and the society in which we live here in the US in 2017 is a patriarchal and classist one but being able to see the impact of those oppressive systems on the stage in such an illustrative story allows us to see them in a way that we may not be able to see them in our every day lives. The idea that "you can't taste the soup you're in". But as an audience member looking at that same soup, the soup in which the characters are living, we may become better able to see it. And see the impact it has. And see how damaging and foolish it truly is.

(Play discussion group script #3)

[Aaron Piccirillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m not a witch. But I wish I was. If I could live I’d be a witch now after what they’ve done. I’d make wax men and melt them on a slow fire.”

hello to my queen caryl churchill!!! while this wasn’t my favorite play by her it was still a very good show and is definitely a lot more toned down than her other work. loved the use of witch-hunts as a metaphor for women’s rights/feminism. lots of interesting commentary on power and gender during the seventeenth century as well as present day. also lots of brecht influence in here soo go off queen. anyways caryl churchill never fails me to write a good ass play…. this also gave me lots of creature by heidi schreck vibes.

[Abeer Abdelhamid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vinegar Tom
او كما نشرت بالعربية تحت عنوان "القط فينيجار او الساحرات" من ترجمة سناء صليحة فى كتاب "نصوص من المسرح النسائى" المسرحية تبرز الى مدى سهولة القاء الاتهامات بشكل جزافى والاسهل هو تصديقها واتخاذ احكاما بناء عليها

"لست ساحرة ولكنى اتمنى لو كنت.. لو كانت فى حياتى بقية لتحولت لساحرة بعد كل ما فعلوه عندئذ كنت سأصنع رجالا من الشمع واذيبهم ببطء على نار هادئة"

تدور احداث المسرحية فى وقت كانت اسوأ تهمة يمكن ان توجه لسيدة انها ساحرة وتمارس الشعوذة والحكم عليها بالموت وهنا نجد كيف استغل البعض هذه التهمة للتخلص من اعدائهم والبعض الاخر صدق التهمة لكى يجد تفسير للمصاعب اتى يقابلها فى حياته دون البحث عن الاسباب الحقيقية او تحمل تبعات تصرفاتهم

[Mandy Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caryl Churchill wrote 'The Crucible' from the women's perspective, not the male accuser's. Arthur Miller wrote a fine play, and all, but from the patriarchal perspective. In 'Vinegar Tom', there are no witches, just women being persecuted for living lives which were not completely subservient to men. Written in 1976, I was involved in a production at Queensland Uni around 1990, and I'm sure it's still relevant today. I recently found the poster and program at the Fryer Library, Uni of Queensland.

[Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huh.

Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill is a play essentially about the prosecution of “witches,” aka women who don’t fit into the social norm, in a small town in the English countryside. I think I get what the author was trying to do, but the language usage seemed heavy handed. This just didn’t do it for me.

[Rebecca Forsyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having recently finished ‘How to Kill Witch’ this was a great play to read, based in 16th/ 17th rural England rather than Scotland.
It truly blows my mind that this madness happened… that this was a standard thought process.

[Emma York · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt dumb after how long it took me to realize this was a musical. I kept wondering why there were fun little songs included after each scene/act. (I don't read much drama, if you can't tell.) I enjoyed this weird little play a lot.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

New cool word ‘concuspient’

😭 songs in books and plays I must get over this as an ick

[Willa · Rating 5 out of 5]

”I been a witch these ten years.”

Yeah.