'Top girls' By Caryl Churchill

Top Girls is a play based on social realism in the 1980’s when it is set. The play is set around Marline a business woman who has sacrificed her child and love to reach the place in society she is now at the play looks at how she compares to woman in history. It looks at how her actions have affected the people around her namely Joyce her sister and her child. The play looks at the thatcherite philosophy and sees how maybe it slightly more complicated that it seem and there will always be victims of this process.

In the first act, marline is hosting a dinner party with ‘great’ woman from history all with a tale to tell. All the women have had to sacrifice something to get to their place in society today all involves love and children.

There is a waitress serving them this shows the working class and that she is not part of the dinner as the class gap is not crosable for certain people.

In the second act scene 1, we are in the back garden of marlins sister Joyce and see her daughter, Angie and Angie’s best friend Kit they are in the tree house. It is established that Angie thinks her aunt Marline is her real mum and that Marline visited last year. The relation ship between her ‘mum’ Joyce and her friend is shown in the dialogue between them. We also see that Angie is not that bright and is expected not to go far in life.

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Angie says that she is going to visit her aunt.

In the second act scene 2, You see the place Marline works and you realise that the feminist image is flawed. One collage has had a mental beak down the other is having affairs with married men and has to hid in the back of the car in an undignified way. She works in a job agency and she has just had a promotion and has beaten a male collage to the post of promotion and caused his wife to come in and ask her to give up her job because she is a woman. Angie then come in and talks to Marline and her collages there are interviews that take place that represent like the waitress and Joyce how for some people to get to the top they have to step on other people.

In the third act, you go back a year and find out how Marline gave Angie up and left to flow her life and burdens Joyce with Angie which cause her husband to leave and Joyce to lose her own child. You see the different political views of Marline and her sister and how she blames people but Joyce blames the system.

Staging is an open cut away proscenium stage with a raised area that all the action takes place in this centres the eye there was a door frame to the right of the stage and ramp of to the wings. In the first, act host and the guests only use the door. In the second scene 2 it is used as the entrance to the office and in the third act it is used as the door in to the kitchen. There is a structure at the back of the stage and this has an image projected on it is a non- descript picture. This could resemble a moon or an eye and in the second act is a gauze and used as an acting space. It is some thing that is time-less it could depict that these women have come from different times. In the first act there is a table set in the centre of the raised area.

Set out in a grand style as if you are in a restaurant there are seats all the way round the table as shown on the first diagram above. One seat has its back to the audience though this seat is only taken up for part of the act as one character comes in late. The set is all black except for the backdrop and the table. In the second the garden is set out and then an office of the 80’s. Then in the last act it is set out as a working class poor kitchen of the early 80’s late 70’s. There are few special effects as they are not needed it this realistic play. The atmosphere of the act is one of a dinner with friends a realistic formal dinner. This act worked very well it was simple but effective.