Caryl Churchill’s collaborative work A Mouthful of Birds is regarded as a significant effort on the representation of gender. The play, which is based on Euripides’ The Bacchae, exhibits transgressive androgynous bodies illustrated in the figure of Dionysus or Herculine Barbin through effective choreography. After the play debuted in 1986, it inspired academic research on the representation of the gender-bending body. Further, critics such as Elin Diamond and Janelle Reinelt have been particularly enthusiastic in their praise of the play and its representation. However, this perspective cannot be applied to certain parts of the play where the female characters suffer. Based on an issue raised in previous studies, the essay attempts to explore A Mouthful of Birds through the perspective of theatrical self-awareness, given that the process of possession, which enables the characters to change, holds various implications on theatrical representations. In the play, seven characters living in modern Britain are suddenly possessed by spirits or impulses, and they are simultaneously possessed by characters from The Bacchae, including Pentheus or Agave. Through an analysis of possessions at these two different levels, this essay aims to examine how the dynamics of representation occurs in the play. At The Bacchae level, possessions display two contrasting qualities of representation. The possession by Pentheus demonstrates the process of becoming a character. Meanwhile, the possession by Agave and the Bacchae displays the violent power of the body that is not reduced to signs. However, these antagonistic relations of representation are not designed to show binary opposition via complex operations. Meanwhile, transforming into another person/form and being dominated by forcible powers are also explored in the possession of the seven characters living in modern Britain. As in the possession of characters in The Bacchae, a variety of power relations such as that between subjects and objects, or the interior and the exterior, are investigated by juxtaposing seven different types of possessions, respectively. By depicting various possessions, which uncover the premised binary of the paradigm of recognition, such as the interior and the exterior, the playwrights intended to destabilize the framework of representation. Consequently, any attempt to deliver a fixed evaluation of the play inevitably fails. In conclusion, the essay argues that the play offers a significant investigation of the complex dynamics of theatrical representation.

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Interdisciplinary survey on family has been proven to fail in the universal definition of family. The modern myth of “family,” based on the conjugal bond and affection, child-centeredness and maternal love, limited in the nuclear household, has been historicized. Sociological investigation problematizes this question as to how and why such “family myth” was constructed and by whom and for whom. Feminist analysis of family has proven this family myth as false both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, public⁄ private dichotomy, which serves as a logical base for the family myth, is inconsistent and therefore invalid. Empirically, this family myth can not be supported with the empirical evidence in many cases. Yet, when the myth of family as a basic site of freedom and recognition is still maintained after its collapse, we must question why it is supported even as a wish. Since family is experienced as a fatal bond by most people, if we can translate a fate to a choice, it could be experienced as freedom. However, it can hardly be the case in reality.

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