Anti-Semitism accusation against Caryl Churchill: playwright is denied award

The theater of the Staatstheater Stuttgart announced on Tuesday afternoon that there will be no “European Dramatists: Interior Prize” this year after all. The jury, it said in a statement, decided in a “re-deliberation” on Monday to “withdraw its decision.” Information had become known over the weekend “that the jury had not previously received”.

It’s about the 84-year-old British dramatist Caryl Churchill, who should have been awarded the European Dramatist Prize for her life’s work and 75,000 euros at the Schauspielhaus on November 20th. The award is under the patronage of Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens). In their decision of April 2022, the jurors praised Churchill as the “master of the game”, who writes “formally demanding, highly varied and always socially committed”. The jury chose a work “that is not on the current political front lines – but for a writing that is written from the great European tradition and addresses social conflicts.” Churchill’s work is “to be rediscovered”.

Agitprop at its finest?

The journalist network “Ruhrbarone” in Bochum then discovered that Caryl Churchill – like quite a few left-wing British intellectuals – had long supported the international cultural boycott movement “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) directed against Israel. As is well known, the controversial presence of BDS artists at the Kassel Documenta has only recently occupied the German public for a long time.

In addition, Wessel sees, for example, in the play “Seven Jewish Children”, which Churchill published in 2009 after a military operation in Gaza – which had been preceded by Palestinian rocket attacks on the Israeli civilian population – clear hatred of Jews. The author traces the killing of Palestinian children in the tradition of alleged “Jewish ritual murders,” an obscene classic of anti-Semitic propaganda since the Middle Ages. Wessel thinks the piece is “agitprop at its best” and was prudently not mentioned by the expert jury in its award statement.

The five-strong expert jury – made up of theater experts Peter Kümmel (“Die Zeit”), Thomas Ostermeier (director of the Schaubühne Berlin), Peter Michalzik (long-time critic of the “Frankfurter Rundschau”), but also Minister of the Arts Petra Olschowski (Greens) – presents now that she knew neither of the author’s “BDS signatures” nor of the play “Seven Jewish Children” until the weekend. The latter was not even published in German.

Clearly documented on Wikipedia

An argument that is difficult to follow: Churchill has never made a secret of her commitment to the BDS goals, and the premiere of the play in question at the Royal Court Theater on February 6 was very controversial in both English and German feuilletons discussed. Both are documented in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Perhaps it was a letter from the President of the German-Israeli Society to the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg that made the difference: On Monday, Volker Beck asked his fellow party member Winfried Kretschmann to “withdraw the patronage for the Dramatist Prize if the responsible authorities hold on to the award”. But of course a Prime Minister can under no circumstances intervene in cultural content such as an award. So the jury had to meet again. According to a spokeswoman for the ministry, Caryl Churchill has now been informed of the new status.