ABSTRACT
Mad Forest marked the beginning of a decade of concentrated cross-disciplinary experiments for Caryl Churchill. In fact, Churchill, like the rising masters of physical theatre in Europe, was fascinated by learning more about physical languages of the body and by experimenting with the integration of dialogue, sung words, music and sound scores, gesture and choreographed movement a cross-art world that was then still more prevalent in continental mainstream theatre than it was on British main stages. These cross-art collaborations allowed her to work with singers, composers, choreographers, directors and designers as equals and her text became a single element in a medley of fused disciplines, as opposed to the dominant organising principle. The magical appearances and disappearances of the Skriker, her shape-shifting and spell-casting, and her jumbled, visceral poetics of speech indicate a primordial energy and earth force as Churchill describes it in her stage directions she is a death portent, ancient and damaged.
