Theater: Biltmore Theatre / 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
Marlene celebrates her promotion to managing director of the Top Girls Employment Agency by throwing a “Mad Hatter” type dinner party for a fanciful array of mythical and historical women, including a Victorian-era Scottish traveler, a Japanese courtesan turned Buddhist nun, Pope Joan and Chaucer’s Patient Griselda. Crossing cultures, generations and politics, the sparkling dinner conversation reveals the sacrifices made as well as the joys experienced by these extraordinary women.
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May 8, 2008: It seems safe to say that no New York restaurant, not even Michael’s or the Four Seasons, has seen a power meal to match the one that so exhilaratingly begins Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls which opened last night in a well-acted revival at the Biltmore Theater.
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It's a mark of the spiky brilliance of Top Girls that regardless of having previously seen or read the 1982 play, deciphering its cryptographic mosaic of narrative, themes, structure and style is still a bracing challenge. Much has changed in the quarter-century since Caryl Churchill took stock of the legacy of feminism in this blistering examination of what women had fought for and attained, and the price they paid to succeed in a male-dominated world. But while the play remains inextricably keyed into the zeitgeist of Thatcher's Britain, its originality is undiminished in MTC's incisively acted Broadway production.
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Though the play is overly talky and circuitous, incisive performances by seven actresses in the Manhattan Theatre Club production make it a fine final entry to the 2007-08 Broadway season.
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Have times changed, or have I? When I first encountered Caryl Churchill's Top Girls in 1982, I was fascinated by its relentless take on feminism - specifically, the glass ceiling and how to break it. Now, as the Manhattan Theater Club brought it back last night - with a top-flight cast featuring Marisa Tomei and Martha Plimpton - I was engrossed by Churchill's technical command of the theater and her willingness to take risks.
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The crucial top girl in theater activist Caryl Churchill's complex Top Girls, being revived by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore, never appears on stage. She's former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was setting the country's political tone during the early 1980's when the play was written in what appears to be a quiet rage. Unfortunately, one of the besetting problems of the play -- which 26 years later has lost more than some of its topical impact -- is that only late in the third act does it become clear what Churchill has been driving at. She is taking a bluntly critical look at Thatcher's dehumanizing social programs and their far-reaching divisive effects, especially on the country's women.
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