Top girls

by Caryl Churchill

Paper Book, 1982

Status

Available

Collection

Description

At a restaurant party thrown by Marlene of the Top Girls Employment Agency are Isabella Bird, the 19th-century traveller, Lady Nijo, courtesan to a 13th-century Japanese Emperor, Brueghel's Dull Gret, Pope Joan and Patient Griselda, wife of Chaucer's Clerk.

User reviews

LibraryThing member 391

An excellent play! Even by just reading it (versus seeing it) you can really grab hold of the tension. It is intriguing, and extremely compelling.

5 more

LibraryThing member edella

Set in the early Thatcher years, Top Girls is a serminal play of the modern theatre, revealing a world of women's experience at a pivotal moment in British history. Told by an eclectic group of historical and modern characters in a continuous conversation across ages and generations, Top Girls was

hailed as 'the best British play ever by a woman dramatist'

Show Less

LibraryThing member atreic

Oh, this play made me cry. It's a brutal yet humourous portrayal of Marlene (a top executive) and her sister (a single mother) and manages to illustrate the questions of duty, choice, motherhood and what women should be brilliantly while leaving us no easy answers or trite moral messages at the end

of the play.

Show Less

LibraryThing member leslie.98

Because I was listening to this play rather than watching it, the switch from Marlene's dinner party to her niece was jarringly abrupt. In fact, at first I thought that there was a problem with the recording. The dinner party was amusing so I didn't expect the emotion of the ending (though upon

reflection, there was plenty of foreshadowing).

Listened to this play courtesy of the LATW website streaming broadcast.

Show Less

LibraryThing member jwhenderson

Churchill's play is a mix of drama and comedy, with elements of fantasy and Freud thrown in for good effect. I enjoyed seeing a performance of the play more than I enjoyed reading it. This was primarily because the acting and the direction of the play brought out its best moments.

Top Girls is the

story of one woman’s rise to success and of the other women in her life (as well as those in history) whose experiences call hers into question. Its all-female cast speaks from a wide variety of cultural and political positions in dialogue that is orchestrated on the page almost like musical lines and themes, with numerous interruptions, dual conversations, and simultaneous speeches which undercut or highlight one another. The resulting development of the play shows success for the assertive Marlene who has reached the top of the hierarchy at an employment agency, along with the price that she had to pay to achieve that success. The darker side of the play portrays her sister and niece who are living a more proletarian lifestyle.

The mixture of the two with the addition of a lengthy fantastic dinner scene to open the play provides more questions than answers about what the message of the drama is. Since it was first produced in 1982, the play may be a little dated, but much of the drama seems timely enough. It is the somewhat confusing delivery of that drama over the space of two acts and five scenes that left this reader slightly less than satisfied.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ffortsa

Churchill explores the various ways women have coped with ambition and maternity in fable and history. At an imaginary dinner for a modern woman celebrating her promotion at an employment agency, famous characters from history join her to talk to each other and share their stories: Griselda and

Pope Joan, Isabella Bird, Lady Niho, Dull Gret. Scene 2 brings us to the more concrete present, where we see what has earned her this promotion, how she treats and coaches the women she places. Act 2 reveals what her life has cost her, and others, and what it might mean to give up everything to be Top Girl. Very much of its Thatcherite time, but still relevant.

Show Less

Fewer