Top Girls

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 depressed, unemployed sister, Joyce. Marlene had exploited Joyce by convincing her to look after her daughter Angie and abandoning her home in order to pursue a career.

Related Topics:
1982 - Caryl Churchill

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although the play is set in Britain, it implicitly condemns the increased influence of American 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.

Related Topics:
Margaret Thatcher - Reaganomics - Patriarch - Socialist

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The play is famous for its dreamlike opening sequence in which Marlene meets famous women from history, including Pope Joan, Patient Griselda, the explorer Isabella Bird, Dulle Griet the harrower of Hell, and the Japanese writer Lady Nijo. They behave like a gang of city career women out on the town and gradually get increasingly drunk and maudlin, as it is revealed that each has suffered in similar ways.

Related Topics:
Pope Joan - Patient Griselda - Isabella Bird - Dulle Griet - Japan - Lady Nijo

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There is a sense of doubling with each of these women. Bird, like Marlene got to where she was by leaving her sister to deal with family matters. Dulle Griet compares to Angie, Marlene's daughter, as being monosyllabic and inarticulate.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The structure of the play is rather inconventional. In Act I, Marlene is depicted as a successful businesswoman, and all her guests from different ages celebrate her promotion in the 'Top Girls'. Act II shows Marlene at work, and a surprisingly masculine world of the mostly female stuff of the agency. The ladies in 'Top Girls' become tough and insensitive in order to to compete with men. In the same Act, the audience can see Angie, her angry helpless psyche and her loveless relationship with Joyce, whom the girl hates and dreams to kill. And 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.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~