Caryl Churchill: *Top Girls* (1982)
*Top Girls* is a landmark feminist play by British dramatist Caryl Churchill, first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1982. The play is celebrated for its bold, non-linear structure, its critique of Thatcher-era individualism, and its exploration of the costs women pay for professional success within a patriarchal system.
**Plot Summary**
The play opens with a surreal dinner party. Marlene, a high-powered career woman who has just been promoted to managing director of the "Top Girls" employment agency, hosts a banquet for five extraordinary women from history and art: **Isabella Bird** (a Victorian explorer), **Lady Nijo** (a 13th-century Japanese courtesan-turned-Buddhist nun), **Dull Gret** (the subject of a Brueghel painting who leads women to storm Hell), **Pope Joan** (the legendary female pope who disguised herself as a man), and **Patient Griselda** (a famously obedient wife from Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales*). They eat, drink, and share stories of suffering, compromise, and survival. The scene is comic, anachronistic, and deeply unsettling: these "successful" women have all endured rape, abandonment, or self-erasure.
The remaining acts shift to reality. They alternate between Marlene's London office (where she competes ruthlessly with a male colleague) and the bleak East Anglian home of her sister, Joyce, who cares for Marlene's abandoned daughter, Angie—a slow, unhappy teenager. The play's devastating revelation: Marlene left Angie with Joyce when Angie was a toddler, prioritizing her career over motherhood. Angie, now 16, worships Marlene but is clearly damaged. The play ends with Joyce and Marlene screaming at each other over their different choices—and Angie, upstairs, whispering "Frightening" as she falls asleep.
**Major Themes**
- **Feminism and Individualism:** Churchill attacks the "successful woman" model of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s. Marlene gains power by stepping on other women, believing she has beaten the system when she has merely joined her oppressors.
- **Sisterhood vs. Competition:** The dinner guests can share pain but cannot change each other's circumstances. The real tragedy is the broken bond between Marlene and Joyce—and the neglected Angie.
- **Non-Linear Structure:** The opening fantasy banquet disrupts chronological realism, forcing the audience to compare mythical "top girls" with contemporary casualties.
**Legacy**
*Top Girls* remains a cornerstone of modern feminist drama. Its all-female cast, inventive structure, and unflinching examination of the personal costs of ambition continue to challenge and provoke audiences. It is frequently revived and studied as a classic of 20th-century political theatre.