![]() The cast is outstanding – seven terrific actresses in top form under a top director. Women are only ever partially heard, and often the most important part of what we have to say is lost to the ear. We miss so much of the stories – but that’s the point. Whilst Churchill writes heavily overlapping dialogue, Kemp choreographs it in a way that annoys yet intrigues us. Director Jenny Kemp (how wonderful to see her work back on a major stage) takes us on that journey in exhilarating yet confronting fashion. She hasn’t learned that finding oneself doesn’t have to be at the expense of losing others, denying them even. Marlene is our heroine, and she’s also selfish. A pioneering heroine:- Or something less admirable? Any return to home saw her become ill – yet she never recognised the symptoms were boredom and the illness was selfishness. Isabella Bird, writer and traveller, only feels complete when on her own and facing adventure. ![]() ![]() Pope Joan succeeds in fooling men into believing she is one of them, until she gives birth to a baby and is stoned to death for heresy. So, courtesan turned Buddhist nun, Lady Nijo, spends half her life in sin, half in repentance, but none of it in happiness because her self absorption doesn’t allow her to ever truly know herself. But while it sets context, it concerns their journeys, not Marlene’s, and each has its own less than happy outcome. This first act imagining, or dream, with its combination of mythical, historical and even fictional women, is the most talked about section of the play. She celebrates with a dinner party for “friends.” – women who have been outsiders for bucking the establishment and yet have all broken through in their own way to find Freedom and individuality, if not equality. We see the justified excitement of a businesswoman who has broken through that over-glazed “glass ceiling”. Set in the 80s – the dizzy days of Margaret Thatcher proving a woman could be anything she chose, then the horror of the price we had to pay for beating men at their own game – the play follows the path of Marlene, newly promoted to the top job in her company, beating the man who certainly expected, if not deserved, the promotion. We need reminding of it now more than ever. That might not seem important in our twenties, but it may come back to haunt us with regrets in our 60s and 70s. We’ve come a long way in the pursuit of “having it all” and yet we have failed to make the generations that followed understand that there is always a price to pay, something to be sacrificed, whether it’s our children or our humanity. And yet Top Girls is as much an indictment of that movement as it is a vindication, and that’s why it is still fresh and relevant today. August 25 – September 29, 2012.Ĭaryl Churchill is a fine playwright and product of the early feminist movement which saw us burn our bras and risk bruised kneecaps, in a futile attempt to prove that equal meant “same”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |