Top Girls

I think this is the last PLAY, yes another one!  So, I guess this one is actually pretty entertaining, so I will not go into detail about my Tisch students who want a play to be a best novel.  Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is set in Britain and brings in the stories of historical women and parallels them with the modern women of the day.  The opening scene is pretty funny when the “dead women’s society” – Pope Joan, Griselda (the patient wife from the Clerk’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) and Lady Nijo, a Japanese mistress who becomes a Buddhist nun – have dinner with Marlene, the driven “can’t hold her down” woman of the 1980s (when it was written).  The tempo, language, and interaction make the first Act go by quickly.  The remaining scenes follow Marlene’s history before rising to the top at Top Girl’s Employment Agency.  We learn that Marlene left her poor upbringing and illegitimate child with her struggling sister and faces a “Man’s World” as the top dog at the agency.  The last scene of the play is set one year before and we learn about the choices that Marlene makes before she makes it “to the top”...  if that in fact is the top, is it where women, or anyone, want to be?  Interesting question.  Lots of levels in this story, I probably missed a bunch, for sure.   Overall, as a play as a book, not bad.  I could actually visualize this play pretty well.  Maybe my directing shoes are getting ready to be put on?  Hmmm…  maybe not, no more plays on this list (!),  well until I meet another Tisch student, huh?