Preview
Production Season
Fall 2024
Dates of Performance
Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 7-9, 2024 at 7:30 PM. Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024 at 3 PM
Production Staff
Directed by Ron Dye
Recommended Citation
Theatre, DePauw, "Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill" (2024). All Past DePauw Theatre Seasons. 99, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/commtheatre_past/99
Keywords
undergraduate theatre
Play Summary
In a seventeenth century rural village a young woman named Alice takes as a lover a married man who lives on a neighboring farm. After she rebukes another man’s amorous advances both Alice and her widowed mother are accused of witchcraft following their neighbors’ growing family strife and agricultural failures. The two women eventually must submit to the doctors who would cure them as well as to the land speculators who covet their meager farm. Another kindred spirit, a betrothed young daughter of a prosperous landowner, is judged to be insane and is locked away because she doesn’t wish to marry. And in the minds of the local villagers, behind it all is Vinegar Tom, the stealthy cat who is often seen lurking about, boldly plundering barns and milk sheds. Vinegar Tom was written in 1976 by one of Great Britain’s most accomplished contemporary playwrights, Caryl Churchill, in collaboration with the all women’s theatre ensemble Monstrous Regiment. Playwright Churchill has said of her inspiration for the play, “I wanted to write a play about witches with no witches in it; a play not about evil, hysteria and possession by the devil but about poverty, humiliation and prejudice, and how the women accused of witchcraft saw themselves.”