About: Vinegar Tom

Vinegar Tom is a 1976 play by the British playwright Caryl Churchill. The play examines gender and power relationships through the lens of 17th-century witchcraft trials in England. The script employs features of the epic theater associated with German playwright Bertolt Brecht, particularly through use of song as well as the added anachronism of the actors, who performed music in modern dress, despite the play's 17th century setting. There were seven songs and twenty-one scenes. The play's title comes from the name of one character's pet cat, supposed to be her familiar spirit, likely inspired by the supposed imp of one Elizabeth Clarke, a woman tried and executed for witchcraft in Essex in 1645.