Bliss

Welcome to Wal-Mart. On their break, a cashier and her fellow workers flick through celebrity gossip magazines.

‘See you Later, Celine,’ says a headline. What’s wrong with Celine? Why is she turning her back on her glamorous public life, her adoring fans? And how is her story connected to the story of an unknown woman on the facing page? It’s not. Until the Oracle intervenes.

This wild and slippery fantasy from French-Canadian writer Olivier Choiniere explores our insatiable appetite for private lives made public. In a new translation by Caryl Churchill, Bliss is a clever, disturbing piece about the damage done by vicarious living (Financial Times).

Oliver Choiniere founded the L'ACTIVITE Theatre Company in 2000 for which he has written and directed extensively. His French-language translations of English plays include Les Points Tournants (Passing Places) by Stephen Greenhorn and Road by Jim Cartwright.

Caryl Churchill has written for the stage, television and radio. A renowned and prolific playwright, her plays include Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Far Away, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Bliss, Love and Information, Mad Forest and A Number. In 2002, she received the Obie Lifetime Achievement Award and 2010, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.