Play review: Top Girls (1982) by Caryl Churchill.

I decided that all you readers of my blog deserved yet another review of another Caryl Churchill play. Today I am reviewing her 1982 play Top Girls. This play asks what it takes to be a woman, particularly a woman who wants something for herself. It also asks what implications that can have other women. The central character Marlene, becomes head of an employment agency known as Top Girls. It is evident how misogyny and adhering to the Patriarchy were present in the 1980s. One of the workers at the Top Girls agency, Howard becomes sick. When his wife turns up at the agency, it is discovered that his sickness is shock at having to work for a woman. Mrs Kidd even suggests that Marlene could give up the job to allow Harold to have it. I am glad that things are different now even if things in life could be better!

Now despite Marlene's advancing career, there is the underlying fact that she has a unwell mother and a sister with her own daughter. The familiar aspect of her life seems to be a minor thing for her. It seems that she is too career driven it is a more important part of her life. As the paly opens, we even see all the women come together to celebrate her promotion. There is no mention of family until much later in the play. Instead we find more out about the family and personal lives of other characters such as Lady Nejo or Pope Joan. What Caryl Churchill highlights in act one is that there was a struggle for women to have children and have their desired job. Take Pope Joan for example, she had to pretend to be a cisgender man in order to be a pope. Obviously, as a cisgender man she would not have been able to have a baby. I was shocked discovering she had a baby so you can imagine how the women and especially the other members of her church reacted.

Motherhood however is a tangled mess and offers sharp realisations for Marlene. I think Churchill exploring it in the play, particularly after the theme of career was put upfront. After all, the play is named after Marlene's employment agency and the naming is clever. There is this evident display of varying women with power, struggles and determinations, the play is a strong feminist example. I thoroughly loved reading the play. It is filled with wit, sarcasm, seriousness and shock. I am giving Top Girls a 10/10.


Until next time,


Thomas.

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