Top Girls

by Caryl Churchill

Book Overview

Serious Comedy / Castin: 7f. with doubling / Ints.

Marlene has been promoted to managing director of a London employment agency and is celebrating. The symbolic luncheon is attended by women in legend or history who offer perspectives on maternity and ambition. In a time warp, these ladies are also her co workers, clients and relatives. Marlene, like her famous guests, has had to pay a price to ascend from proletarian roots to the executive suite:...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0573630232
• ISBN13: 9780573630231
• Release Date: September 1982
• Publisher: Concord Theatricals
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Helpful Notes

In addition to the script of Top Girls, the book has information about Caryl Churchill as well as a synopsis and commentary for the play. There are detailed notes on vocabulary and expressions, black and white photos of productions, and questions for further study. All this comes within graphically pleasing front and back covers. I found studying this guide enhanced my enjoyment of the live production. The synopsis, commentary and notes are both scholarly and accessible.

Definitive of great theatre

So deep and dense with facts, theory and symbolism that I thought she broke my brain! I have never been more pleased with a play. This was a masterpiece.

A strongly recommended addition

Marlene (Amy Brenneman) has just been made Managing Director of the 'Top Girls Employment Agency' in Maggie Thatcher's anything-goes England of the high-flying 1980s. But in pursuing her professional success, Maggie doesn't really have any friends - but she is in possession of a personal past she'd just as soon forget. At a party where famous women from history collects, Maggie discovers that life above the 'glass ceiling' of the business world isn't really all that satisfying. Supported by an outstanding cast that includes Megan Austin Oberle, Kirsten Potter, Samantha Robson, Kate Steele, Concetta Tomei, and Missy Yager, this Caryl Churchill play, "Top Girls", is professionally directed by John Rubinstein and presents the listener with a truly impressive 'theatre of the mind' experience - the kind that is special to the resonating imagination and epitomizes the best of what live theatre has to offer an appreciative audience. Flawless produced and recorded, "Top Girls" is a strongly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library audiobook and Theatrical Studies collections.

Feminism through the ages?

I read Top Girls in my dramatic literature class in college. Reading the play can be very helpful if you plan to attend a performance. Characters are constantly interrupting each other mid-sentence and an audience can miss much of the dialouge. The concept for the play is wonderful. It examines women's lives throughout history- from Joan of Arc to women in a temp agency- all sitting down to dinner. The dialogue is exceptional and the each woman's story can fill a play in itself. However, this is definately a play you will want to see acted on stage. It's also a fun play to read/ act out loud with girlfriends because it raises many issues which concern contemporary women.

The price of success

Caryl Churchill's 'Top Girls'is a play about women who have defined their roles in life according to their individual perception of womanhood. As the play opens and we see women from ages past sit around celebrating Marlene's promotion, this anomaly is lost in the dynamism of the conversation. Are these women really successful? Has Marlene really risen to become a 'top girl'? These questions are debated in the following scenes where the reader meets various women who have pursued their profession at the expense of a personal life. Marlene is no exception, as she has given up a daughter to drive across the USA and live in the 'fast lane' while her sister cared for the child. Unlike Marlene, she has given up options in life to take care of her sister's daughter and maintains the family bonds by visiting her aged mother. Marlene, however, is still the favored one by both daughter and mother; has she earned this praise?This is not only about women and feminism. It is about labour and class, about sacrifice, and most of all, about human imperfections. I enjoyed not just reading the play, but the stimulating debates that arise out of discussions inspired by the text. It is not a traightforward contrast between right and wrong, old and modern, feminine and masculine but it examines the gray areas in between which take into account human fallacies and individual priorities.