Caryl Churchill is one of my favourite playwrights and family and friends were raving about this after seeing it in Chichester so I was thrilled that it transferred to London.
When I watch one of Churhill's plays I feel like she is saying something important and complicated. She doesn't just tell us a story to illustrate a point, she explores a theme, condenses and distils it and presents it to us whole.
Feminism and female roles in society were given this treatment in Top Girls. I felt heart broken after watching it. Surely there is a way to be beautiful and successful, live in London and be a socialist? Can a woman be successful without sacrificing everything else? It is disturbing to recognise yourself in two characters who are in direct conflict with each other but that's what I felt when watching Marlene and Joyce argue.
The play condemns the impact Thatcherism had on feminism in the 1980s. Like Japanese knotweed it poisoned the feminist movement rebranding it as misguided hippy nonsense. I can still feel the impact of this today, particularly in the workplace. Women replaced women's rights with the rights of the individual and the toughest, like Marlene, fought their way upwards in masculine shoulder pads sacrificing family life, relationships on the way. When they reach the top they look down crowing that if they can do it, anyone can. And those that can't are stupid and lazy. Joyce points out to Marlene that her daughter Angie, who Joyce has raised for her, is stupid and lazy "What about her?" But as Marlene coldly points out to her work colleagues when Angie turns up at her workplace "She's not going to make it."
This post isn't really a review of the production but I'd like to say that it is excellent and brilliant and you should go. Suranne Jones in particular is a vastly underrated actor because she was so funny on Coronation street but she is a chameleon and played Marlene brilliantly.
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