TOP GIRLS: the (female) price for success

THEATRE: Trafalgar Studios, London

DATE: 25-08-2011

TIME: 19:30

WITH: Suranne Jones, Catherine McCormack, Lucy Briers, Olivia Poulet, Stella Gonet, Laura Elphinstone, Lisa Kerr

DIRECTOR: Max Stafford-Clark

“Top Girls” (1982), a reaction to the rise of Thatcherism, is Caryl Churchill’s (Cloud Nine, Far Away) most celebrated work and has influenced a slew of British playwrights, including Sarah Kane (Blasted) and Mark Ravenhill (Shopping and Fucking). When I had to read it at university I have to confess that I was quite baffled by it on the page. In 2011, however, I was excited to finally see a production of it by the man, Max Stafford-Clark, who directed the groundbreaking original at the Royal Court. 

Although Top Girls still puzzled me a bit - while watching it - I was completely engrossed by what was transpiring before my eyes on stage. If I had seen this production when it was obligatory reading I would have been much more excited about and undoubtedly understood it much better. Days after having seen the play I was still thinking about it and the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated its originality and power. 

 The surreal stunner of a dinner scene

Churchill’s play is told in three acts, adventurously combines surrealism with naturalism, switches back and forth in time, and employs overlapping dialogue to great effect. It occurred to me that the latter technique must have influenced Tony Kushner's use of it in his last play The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, which I saw a couple of months ago at the Public Theater in New York. But I digress. 

Stafford-Clark has directed a pitch perfect production that started out at Chichester and has now transferred to the West End. It is staged on a great set by Tim Shortall that - like Churchill’s text - has great fun with mixing old and new. Before the play starts huge photos are projected of iconic females throughout the ages from Anne Frank to Madonna. Significantly the slide show ends with two photos of Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher, who represent opposites of womanhood in the ‘80s (the decade in which the play is set.) The production uses bouncy pop songs from the era – from Dolly Parton to The Specials – which often creates an interesting friction between the music and gloomy action of the play.

 Suranne Jones in top form as Marlene

The first act is still a surreal stunner. It depicts a celebratory dinner held by Marlene (Suranne Jones), who has just been promoted to managing director of the Top Girls employment agency. The surreal part lies in the guests, who are iconic women from various centuries. They include a Japanese concubine (who became a Buddhist nun), Pope Joan (who was disguised as a man during her reign), and Breugel’s Dull Gret. What these women have in common is their refusal to adhere to assigned subordinate female roles. The scene is brilliantly written. Each trailblazer has her own distinctive voice and manner, which often leads to hilarious moments. Eventually, however, the mood shifts as the topic of conversation turns to the price of success.

Lucy Briers & Catherine McCormack

The second act introduces a whole new character: Angie and just as it becomes apparent that this girl is not the sharpest tool in the shed the play switches to the Top Girls agency. All this switching is a bit disorientating but keeps one sharp. At the agency various women are interviewed for prospective jobs and  through them a rather bleak picture is painted of women in the workplace. At the end of this act the connection between Angie and Marlene is finally revealed.

The third act goes back in time and precedes the second act. It is here that Churchill's ideas become crystallized as Marlene's Darwinian philosophy is pitted against those of her socialist sister. Thatcher famously stated that “There’s no such things as society” and Churchill succinctly shows the consequences of this philosophy in microcosm. The play ends on a harrowing note, with just one word:  "frightening". The way it is delivered by Olivia Poulet's Angie (and lit) sends chills up the spine. Top Girls paints a picture of a frightening society indeed, which hit home extra what with the recent London riots and all.

 Stella Gonet & Suranne Jones

Stafford-Clark’s cast is uniformly excellent. Especially Suranne Jones is in great form as Marlene. She makes her character totally likeable, relatable and glamorous (her party dress is straight out of Joan Collins' wardrobe from Dynasty). This makes her final survival of the fittest stance all the more shocking. Worth mentioning too are Stella Gonet as Marlene’s socialist sister, and Catherine McCormack and Lucy Briers, who are terrific in the dinner scene as respectively the Buddhist nun and Pope Joan. Top Girls remains a timeless play in form as well as in content and it was thrilling to see it performed in such a classy production and on the commercial stage at that.

B.t.w. In 2008 Top Girls was also revived on the most commercial stage in the world: Broadway. The cast included Marisa Tomei, Martha Plimpton and Mary Beth Hurt.