Top Girls
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Top Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It depicts the life of Marlene, a hard-bitten career woman who runs the 'Top Girls' employment agency, and her interactions with her family she left behind. Marlene left her working class background to pursue financial success, leaving her illegitimate child with her apparently infertile sister, Joyce.
[edit] Themes
The play is set in Britain and implicitly condemns the increasing incidence of Thatcherist values in society, and especially their effect on Feminism. Churchill has stated that the play was inspired by her conversations with American feminists: it comments on the contrast between American feminism, which celebrates individualistic women who acquire power and wealth, and British socialist feminism, which involves collective group gain. In addition, there is also a commentary on Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister, who also celebrated individualism and believed in Reaganomics. Marlene the tough career woman is portrayed as soulless, exploiting other women and suppressing her own caring instincts in the cause of success. The play argues against the style of feminism that simply turns women into new patriarchs and argues for a more socialist feminism that is about caring for the weak and downtrodden. The play questions whether it is possible for women in society to combine a successful career with a thriving family life.
[edit] Style
The play is famous for its dreamlike opening sequence in which Marlene meets famous women from history, including Pope Joan, who, disguised as a man, is thought to have been pope between 854-856; the explorer Isabella Bird; Dull Gret the harrower of Hell; Lady Nijo, the Japanese mistress of an emperor and later a Buddhist nun; and Patient Griselda, the patient wife from The Clerk's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. All of these characters behave like a gang of city career women out on the town and get increasingly drunk and maudlin, as it is revealed that each has suffered in similar ways.
The stories of the historical women parallel the characters in the modern-day story. For example, Bird, like Marlene, got to where she was by leaving her sister to deal with family matters. Dull Gret's monosyllabic inarticulacy is comparable to Angie's. Some of these parallels are emphasised by the actors doubling the roles of the historical and modern characters.
The structure of the play is unconventional. In Act I, scene 1, Marlene is depicted as a successful businesswoman, and all her guests from different ages celebrate her promotion in the 'Top Girls' employment agency. We then jump to the present (early 80s) where we see Marlene at work in the surprisingly masculine world of the female staff of the agency, in which the ladies of 'Top Girls' must be tough and insensitive in order to compete with men. In the same act, the audience sees Angie's angry, helpless psyche and her loveless relationship with Joyce, whom the girl hates and dreams of killing. Only in Act III, which takes place a year before the previous two, does the audience hear that Marlene, not Joyce, is Angie's mother. This notion, as well as the political quarrel between the sisters shifts the emphasis of the play and formulates new questions.
[edit] Pope Joan
Pope Joan is one of Marlene's dinner party guests in act 1, scene 1, and the fourth to arrive. Pope Joan is somewhat aloof, making relevant, intelligent declarations throughout the conversation. When the topic turns to religion, she cannot help but point out heresies—herself included—though she does not attempt to convert the others to her religion. Joan reveals some of her life. She began dressing as a boy at age twelve so she could continue to study; she lived the rest of her life as a man, though she had male lovers. Joan was eventually elected pope. She became pregnant by her chamberlain lover and delivered her baby during a papal procession. For this, Joan was stoned to death. At the end of the scene, Joan recites a passage in Latin. Like all the dinner guests, Joan's life and attitude reflects something about Marlene.
