Top Girls: Plays 1: Modern Classics

Caryl Churchill has written for the stage, television and radio. Her acclaimed body of work also includes Three More Sleepless Nights (1980); Top Girls (1982); Fen (1983); Mouthful of Birds (1986); Serious Money (1989); The Skriker (1984); Blue/Heart (1998) and Far Away in Autumn (2000) which transferred to the West End.

"Top Girls has a combination of directness and complexity which keeps you both emotionally and intellectually alert. You can smell life, and at the same time feel locked in an argument with an agile and passionate mind." The Sunday Times, John Peter

'[Caryl Churchill is] a playwright of genuine audacity and assurance, able to use her considerable wit and intelligence in ways at once unusual, resonant and dramatically riveting' (Benedict Nightingale, New Statesman)

Chronology (Churchill's life and work, alongside significant political, social and cultural events) Contexts* Historical contexts (women's rights/advancement; Thatcher's Britain)* Theatrical contexts (The Royal Court; Max Stafford Clark; production history; critical responses)* The play today (an interview with David Shirley, director of the play in 2014) Themes * Women and work * Female Genealogy: Mothers and daughters (killing your mother; giving up your daughter); sisters (and sisterhood); 'Herstory'/re-finding women's histories* Women's ability/freedom to occupy multiple/conflicting roles* Women aping masculine behaviour/dress/passing as men* 'Getting away'/freedom/travel/social mobility* Class (individualism vs socialism; economic/social mobility; materialism vs human compassion; 'successful' women ignoring the plight of less fortunate women) Dramatic Technique* Language* Structure* Characterisation/multi-roling Academic Debate (including suggestions for further reading) Related Work Play Text (with on-page glossing/notes) Glossary of Dramatic Terms

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At a restaurant party thrown by Marlene of the Top Girls Employment Agency are Isabella Bird, the 19th-century traveller, Lady Nijo, courtesan to a 13th-century Japanese Emperor, Brueghel's Dull Gret, Pope Joan and Patient Griselda, wife of Chaucer's Clerk.