Review: Top Girls, or, why I’m happy to be a young feminist
by Jane
In 1982, the New York Times described Top Girls as “intent on breaking rules.” Thirty years later, Top Girls feels rather a lot like a Well Made Play. Playwright Caryl Churchill has been so influential on the current crop of playwrights that seeing her work on stage now as part of the canon it feels simply that – part of the canon, no longer radical.
And in that tradition, Catherine Fitzgerald’s production for the State Theatre Company is a well made production. Maintaining the eighties setting with shoulder pads intact, and with solid performances from the cast the show rips along much faster than you would suspect of its nearly three hours running time.
Mary Moore’s set keeps it mainly simple: a curved dining table in the first scene, several (computer-less, even for 1982) desks and a office percolator, a small wall for Kit (Carissa Lee) and Angie (Antje Guenther)’s hideaway, a couch and table in Joyce’s home; location settings somewhat unnecessarily indicated by large stagnant projections. The simplicity of Moore’s set – which places the characters and text at the centre of the production, is overshadowed though, by a confusingly literal interpretation of the “glass ceiling” metaphor.
At the dinner party the glass ceiling has been broken – although it is very clear that most of these women just managed to survive within the patriarchy, not beyond it: being stoned to death, giving up their children at the test of their partners, living as a concubine and a nun. At the office, too, the glass ceiling is broken – Marlene (Ulli Birvé) receiving a top job at Top Girls, this is clear enough. In Suffolk, at the home of Marlene’s working class sister Joyce (Eileen Darley), the ceiling remains intact and unbroken. Most confusingly, though, is when the glass ceiling descends during the last scene of the play (the first scene chronologically), as Marlene and Joyce talk. Saying what, exactly? The more time you spend in a lower class area the lower your ceiling becomes? The act of women talking to each other causes the ceiling to drop? The restrictions on the working class Joyce are certainly greater than her now middle class sister, but why the lowering?
Some costumes, too, were interesting choices. Pope Joan (Guenther) looked dressed ready to attend a five-year-old’s fairy birthday party, and I wondered where Lady Nijo (Lia Reutens) managed to find a nude, strapless bra in the thirteenth century, let alone why the entire right cup sat above the top of her dress.
These are just distractions, though. While Chruchill’s script gives little room for modulation in the characters – the hard lined Marlene, hell-bent at getting to the top at the exclusion of all others mirrored against her socialist sister, a single mother stuck in menial cleaning jobs – Fitzgerald has brought out solid performances from all women involved. And although Reutens’ Lady Nijo, with high pitched giggles behind an outstretched hand, veers perilously close to Orientalism, her Win gives some moments of rare heart in the Top Girls office.
It’s an unfortunate state of the arts that a first act of over one hundred minutes had us bracing as we went into the theatre, but Fitzgerald and her cast keep the work moving so it isn’t felt. The three distinct sections of the work play with different constructs, and this keeps the play moving forward: from the overlapping dialogue and relationships in the party between women who maybe never had peers like they find at the dinner table, the short scenes about early eighties offices and work personas of women coming together, to the most naturalistic and traditional family scene in Joyce’s Suffolk home where the women are set against each other. The cast take to these different structures with ease, and in some of the doubling the actors are unrecognisable from one another.
But within this solid production, I am deeply, deeply saddened that Fitzgerald thinks this is a play with contemporary relevance. That she doesn’t see that the world we inherited from her generation is a much better world than Churchill was writing in. While we may not prescribe to the oft derided mantra “women can have it all” (what a storm that article threw up), we don’t believe we will have to make a choice of career or family – nor if we choose the latter it’s goodbye to the former forever. We were raised, many of us, by feminist women – and men – who worked hard to make sure we are inheriting a good world. A world where we don’t believe it will be harder for us to get a job because we’re a woman – and our male peers don’t believe they’re entitled to a role above us, and rather I think many would be insulted by the notion they just received a job because they are a man. A world where female boss is just as common as a male boss.
Our mothers kept their names when they married – if indeed they married at all. They had children and careers or their own businesses. They raised us to believe we could be anything we wanted to be – and a twelve-year-old girl saying she wants to be a nuclear physicist is nothing to be scoffed at. For us as young girls in Australia there was never a sense we couldn’t be Prime Minister just because there had never been a female PM before. It was just something we hadn’t quite got around to yet.
It’s not that the world we currently live in is all happy and rosy. We haven’t “solved feminism” any more than feminisim has failed. The state of politics against women in the US is truly scary, and every now and then Australian politics and politicians echo these sentiments. Casual misogyny and everyday sexism runs through much of Australian culture and media. The pay gap is currently the highest it has been in my lifetime. I am incredibly privileged above many women in our society because I am white, educated, and able bodied. Top Girls has been remarked upon by many as an interesting choice for both the STCSA and the Melbourne Theatre Company after the Women in Theatre debate.
But these fights – as tiring and heartbreaking as they may be – are very different fights than the perception that a man may have a heart attack if a woman is promoted above him.
As young women in Australia, we’re not worried that we can’t have a job and have children. We’re not worried we’ll be looked over for a job because of the conscious belief a man would do the job better. We don’t have to hide an engagement when looking for a job, or fake an engagement when looking for a rental home.
And the reason we’re not worried about these things is because we believe the women before us – the women Fitzgerald would call her peers – already sorted that shit out for us. There are many many battles which still need to be fought. But we have the luxury of believing a fight for our careers, a fights for our family, a fight for our happiness, are not our fights. Other women fought them for us. And for that we are eternally grateful.
Beyond being a feminist or women playwright, Churchill as an artist has given so much to contemporary Australian playwrights. Of the ten playwrights interviewed on The Australian Theatre Writers Project, five (Tom Holloway, Ross Mueller, Lachlan Philpott, Christine Evans, and Noëlle Janaczewska) speak about Churchill as an influence. When I interviewed Nicki Bloom about Land & Sea she, too, spoke about the influence of Churchill on her work and on the work of her contemporaries.
It is a great thing to see the words of a playwright who has influenced so many come to life on stage. But it remains to me sad and perplexing that we’re seeing Churchill’s words from 1982 above those who share our world today.
Why aren’t we seeing the words of these playwrights borne from Churchill? People who are telling contemporary stories about contemporary lives. Australia is filled with women playwrights writing about women – and male playwrights writing about women, too. Why are contemporary issues not given a contemporary voice?
Or, as we are seeing Churchill’s words from 1982, why are we maintaining the 1982 setting and maintaining a line that it is contemporary and relevant, and not the museum piece of theatre it really is?
I am so thankful that I don’t have to face the battles Churchill perceived her countrywomen facing thirty years ago. And I hope that in another thirty years the battles we face now will have long ago been eroded and a thing of another generation – of my generation. And I hope that when that time comes I won’t be worried that there aren’t any young feminists, that they’re doing it wrong, that they don’t know the struggles that came before them or the struggles they still face. Because I’ll know there is nothing to fear. That young women and young men will continue to search, and fight, for equality. That the world they inherit will be different from the world I inherited, but that I helped form the one they are in. I’ll hope they’ll listen to the stories of my peers, and I hope they’ll see them as stories of a world that was.
Because today, I am a young feminist. And I stand here with my feminist peers and look out a world which is ours for the taking. We know that the older feminists didn’t solve everything – there are hundreds of thousands of years of patriarchy to look back on. It can’t be fixed in an afternoon. We know that sometimes we feel invisible, but we also know that many older feminists still see us, still see our fight, and also still see our optimism, and they see us as peers. Just as we see them as both peers and role models.
My feminist heroes aren’t the women Churchill feared in Top Girls. Socialism and socialist values are central to my brand of feminism, as it is to my feminist role models. That was the brand of feminism I was raised in, it is the brand of feminism I believe most contemporary feminist dialogue is built around, and I hope the brand of feminism I can continue to work in the construction of.
Australia in 2012 is a pretty fantastic place to be 23. Yes, to be a feminist today is eternally heartbreaking. But it is heartbreaking in how far we have to go, not in how little we’ve come. And alongside that heartbreak, I think we’re eternally optimistic that it will all turn out okay. I wish Fitzgerald could see that. I wish Fitzgerald could celebrate that.
State Theatre Company of South Australia presents Top Girls by Caryl Churchill. Directed by Catherine Fitzgerald, designed by Mary Moore, lighting design by Mark Pennington, composition by Catherine Oates. With Ulli Birvé, Eileen Darley, Antje Guenther, Sally Hidyard, Carissa Lee, Ksenja Logos and Lia Reutens. At the Dunstan Playhouse until September 8. More information and tickets.
Photos by Shane Reid
No Plain Jane 
If you really think the world is that changed you live in a fairy tale. I have personally lost many promotions and permanent positions because I am not a man. I am also unable to, and unlikely to ever earn above the poverty line because I am not a man. I have also personally seen an industry ‘gentleman’s club’ which specifically and deliberately was a networking tool deliberately excluding women. As a woman I am also forced to manage within work systems designed by and for men. The only ‘post-feminism’ comment I agree with you on, is that not ALL men struggle with having a woman for a boss. If these ideas are your basis for saying this play is somewhat prosaic now, then you are very, very mistaken…and yes, I work in the performing arts.
The fight is never over, that’s a truism. But if you’re not allowed to be at least a little optimistic about the present and the future when you’re 23 then when can you be.
I love your conclusion (“Australia in 2012 is a pretty fantastic place to be 23.”) and although I live in France and I’m a man, my little experience of Australia—Perth in particular—would tend to make me agree with you.
Interesting thoughts Jane. I had a vastly different response.
I think your optimism is brilliant and I’m both in awe and jealous of it. I just don’t agree we’ve come forward since the days of Top Girls. While I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in regards to feminism and our generation (but sexism is still rife. Come work behind the candy bar with me one night), what really resonated with me was the class struggles portrayed in the text. There are still girls like Angie out there, and the only thing that has really changed for them is that marriage is no longer presented as the easiest solution for their well being. I went to school with girls like that, and watched them fail, crash and burn despite the best efforts of teachers and peers. The hope for the Angies of the world has not changed, regardless of the Kits hopes seeming less comical. The play made me question why this is.
On another note, if this is Museum Theatre (a concept I have a very tumultuous relationship with), I think it still has a very important place. Had it not been for this production, I would not know that Top Girls existed (I’m just going to hide in a corner embarrassed over that fact now, given that my interest in theatre and current academic studies should ensure that I know who Churchill is…). While ultimately I agree with you that there should be more space for the new works of writers influenced by Churchill (but boy is that a whole other discussion), I think that there should always be a space for Museum Theatre of this calibre (I thought it was a great production, Nijo’s space-bra aside) because I learnt so much, because I found it to be relevant, and because I want to see the older works that inspire the new. And also because I want to see these works performed properly to ensure that I myself am inspired and want to keep working in this industry. I also found that this production was an incredible launch pad for discussion, which ultimately lead to new understandings and a heightened respect for my companion for the evening, who actually worked in politics during that time. One of my top requirements for a theatre production to be considered successful is the discussion it inspires (which you no doubt already know), so TGs gets a big tick from me in this case.
Also I realise I have said also way too many times in this rather incoherent babble.
Hi Samsara – I can’t pretend to speak for your experiences, this is only from mine, and the many other young feminists who I jovially talk about feminism with. I am very confused by your logic, though. I am a woman who earns above the poverty line; and there are men who earn below it. I’m not sure what you mean by “not ALL men” – I assume you are implying that most do have a problem, in which case I suggest you go meet some more men. I have worked under both male and female bosses with male co-workers and I have never noticed animosity to a boss because of their gender.
I’m not post feminist, and I have never suggested as such, but a lot of my point here is I am often told that my perspective as a young feminist is wrong because it’s not the perspective or experience of older women. My optimism here is a fighting optimism, and I don’t agree that I am living in a fairy-tale world, nor that I and my experiences are mistaken.
Daniel – thank you ever so much.
Sophie – there are many many things to be said about the class interactions in the play and in our society, yes. Thank you for pointing that out. I did have to stop rambling at some point…
Thinking about it some more, I think my feelings that I’m silenced as a young feminist are similar to my ideas about Museum Theatre. I don’t have anything wrong with Top Girls (et al) being programmed, but to take two names I already name dropped here I think Holloway and Philpott are two of the finest playwrights currently working anywhere. Their plays are stunning to read, socially relevant, and I find often quite heartbreaking and yet they have never been produced in Adelaide. And that is my issue – that we currently have classics without the new. And that is, as you know, a wide reaching Adelaide arts industry problem which I perhaps got a bit too invested with with this particular issue and production.
Hi Jane. My point here is that: 1. depending on your industry and your position in it will define how much discrimination and sexism you experience. I would have to assume, based on the review and your response to my comments, and your age, you are not in a technical or manual labour field, and therefore I also assume you experiences across the board of the employment market for women (which is the perspective you speak from as a young feminist in this review) is not comprehensive or learned – particularly when you write things like:
“As young women in Australia, we’re not worried that we can’t have a job and have children. We’re not worried we’ll be looked over for a job because of the conscious belief a man would do the job better. We don’t have to hide an engagement when looking for a job, or fake an engagement when looking for a rental home.”
Ask a young female apprentice electrician, or plumber, or carpenter, or mechanic. See what their experiences are. In fact, you could just look at the hospitality industry. My point about earning potential is directly related to the opportunities for permanence and promotion in the ‘non-female-friendly’ careers. With regard to my personal experience, I was once asked by a supervisor if I had children. Before I even had a chance to reply, I was told ‘of course not. You couldn’t do this job if you did’.
I have nothing against optimism. We need it in this world. What I do have a problem with, is someone speaking for a generation without actually investigating it first. If you say you are only speaking for yourself, then fine, say whatever you like. But make sure you know and understand that much of the stuff that happened 20, 30, 50 years ago still goes on. Being naive is not a positive quality – particularly for someone engaging in public commentary.
Samsara – I am a critic and a writer. I could, as many people think we should, start every sentence with “In my opinion” but not only would that be redundant in this field, it would also be cumbersome to read. I say quite clearly here that I am lucky because I am white, educated, and able-bodied – I know that. But I am also writing about women who are in a similar situation to me. My friends; my peers. I can’t pretend to write for everyone, I can only write for me.
This is not the first time these opinions have been called naive, and it is not the last. But you know what? I would rather feel happy about the world and my opportunities in it, then sad and angry.
I’m not running around with hands over my ears pretending that inequalities don’t happen and don’t exist – I’m suggesting a play which says women in an office environment who get married must leave; a play which says if women want to get a job they can’t have kids; a play which says if women don’t have children they’ll be unhappy; a play which says if women have children they’ll be unhappy; a play which was written in and set in 1982 England isn’t the best forum to speak about today’s inequalities.
If you don’t want to partake in my “public commentary” you don’t have to.
Jane!! I’m surprised at you. It’s (last line, second para) = it is. The possessive is “its” (like “his”). Haven’t been in touch for ages – sorry to be negative on my return. Jean
Ah, I can sometimes find it hard to be the most astute editor of my own work – fixed, thanks.
Luckily my understanding is that the MTC version of this play shows just how relevant this story still is. I still can’t believe you say:
“I’m suggesting a play which says women in an office environment who get married must leave; a play which says if women want to get a job they can’t have kids; a play which says if women don’t have children they’ll be unhappy; a play which says if women have children they’ll be unhappy; a play which was written in and set in 1982 England isn’t the best forum to speak about today’s inequalities.”
The universality of the truths of a play are in no way linked to when the play was written or else nobody would be doing Shakespeare any more. If you really walked away thinking this work and these concepts are outdated then I would suggest that lies in the direction and not in the content of the work.
I very much hope that life is kind to you. I still think you used terms that are far too broad and did not clearly qualify your statements, but hopefully this conversation at least gave you pause to think.