![]() Ian MacNeil has designed a long central table in an upscale restaurant, but like many a production of Glengarry Glen Ross, it lacks the atmosphere of a buzzing restaurant full of other customers. The dialogue is snappy and the characterisation certainly sharp as a Victorian explorer breaks bread with an in-disguise female Pope, a Japanese concubine, a medieval figure of obedience and a folklore warrior, but the fantasy nature of the setting and Marlene’s distorted idea of her own relative importance is lost in the too realistic setting. The content of the opener is engaging as five famous women from history have a raucous dinner with Marlene to celebrate her new job as Managing Director of the Top Girls agency, yet the overall scene feels flat. ![]() ![]() It is, however, a very difficult play to manage tonally, with each of its four scenes happening in entirely different styles. This is a strong theme that cuts through the play with Turner utilising Churchill’s many cues to ask what female success really looks like? Later both Marlene and her sister Joyce refer to Marlene’s niece Angie as ‘hopeless’ opening-up a chasm between women who can achieve and those who can’t, while the lengthy opening scene is full of historical women talking over one another to dominate the conversation. Protagonist Marlene along with colleagues Win and Nell are pushy, aggressive saleswomen, grilling their clients without really listening while pushing them towards roles they don’t particularly want. The National’s new production demonstrates this most clearly in the well-staged scene at the end of Act One set in the Top Girls Agency office where a series of client interviews take place. What Turner’s interpretation highlights so well was that 80s feminism was essentially an aping of masculine working styles and concepts of independence that did little to build a support structure for the promotion of other women in the workplace. And, in 1982 Caryl Churchill’s seminal play Top Girlswas first performed and while its central character may be an 80s archetype, her independence comes at a price.Ĭhurchill’s play has only been revived in the West End a handful of times, so Lyndsey Turner’s new production for the National Theatre feels pertinent to a post- #MeToo era in which women are wondering how the gendered-landgrab of the 1980s became a return to the domestic pressure and obsession with image that dominates the modern era. On the surface, the 1980s seemed like a huge breakthrough for women and for anyone growing-up in that decade there were gutsy female role models everywhere the holders of the two pre-eminent governmental roles, the Prime Minister and the monarch, were women and on television the likes of Joan Collins and Stephanie Beecham were powerful icons. ![]()
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