Comic techniques and the comic spirit in selected plays of Caryl Churchill.

Critics have often viewed Caryl Churchill as a comic playwright but have never analysed her methods and materials. I made a study of her plays in order to uncover the comic techniques she uses, find out why she chooses to use comedy when her themes are so serious and painful, and decipher whether or not she is part of the continuum of literary comic tradition. My study of Top Girls, Cloud 9, Vinegar Tom, Light Shining In Buckinghamshire, Fen and Owners reveals that Churchill makes extensive use of structural principles of the sort employed by the great masters and described by theorists throughout the history of stage comedy