Top Girls by feminist playwright Caryl Churchill recently opened, and is currently running, at Ross Valley Players. Set in 1980s London at the Top Girls Employment Agency, Top Girls tells the story of an ambitious and successful career woman, Marlene (Loring Williams) who has just been appointed head of the firm. Her story moves between fantasy and realism, time and space, poverty and affluence as it reveals family secrets and sacrifice.
When the play opens, Marlene has just beat out a male colleague to become Managing Director at the Top Girls Employment Agency, and she dreams up five women from history and legend to join her in celebration. Though successful in business, Marlene fails at finding female companionship. So she invents her own. The guests in attendance are legendary female Pope Joan (Carolyn Power), Lady Nijo (Lina Makdisi), 13th century Japanese-courtesan-turned-Buddhist-nun Dull Gret (Susan Donnelly), warrior subject of a Bruegel painting Isabella Bird (Michelle Darby), a Scottish traveler and the ever-patient Griselda (Theresa Miller) from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. They are all women who made it to the top whether by defiance or obedience, and each paid a terrible price, sacrificing their children in one way or another.
See the full article from “San Francisco Bay Times”
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