I am, last time I checked, not a woman.
So, whatever I have to say about women or women’s issues may be wrong, I suppose. Us guys have been notoriously unreliable about that kind of thing.
What I can say is that I liked “Top Girls” at the Clarence Brown Lab Theater. It’s my kind of play: distinctive, interesting characters, interesting twists, non-realistic symbolic elements– including a dinner party with fantasy guests, a thought provoking nature.
But what is the play trying to say? Without giving too much away, the play, set during Thatcher’s rule in the U.K., is a feminist play criticizing other feminists.
It seems designed as a critique of capitalism generally, of getting ahead at the expense of others, even if you are a woman. Apart from the present day characters, that theme is most embodied by Isabella Bird, a woman who explored the world but expressed those travels through prejudiced lectures on other cultures’ inferiority.
I won’t give too much away about the plot, which seems to exist more for the characters to have something to do than anything. It lacks the craziness of “Cloud 9,” the other play by Caryl Churchill I’ve seen. But still, I found myself amazed at a play about a subject matter which could, theoretically, leave me cold, the soap opera-ish setup of a daughter bonding with her true mother, the debates about work v.s. family, which I’ve never faced — and make it enjoyable to watch, with all of the characters feeling, as played by their actresses interesting and enjoyable to watch, without making any of them clear heroes or villains.
The play has run its course. Next up on the Clarence Brown Schedule: “Around the World in Eighty Days,” a main stage show. A little less deep or is it? I will see.
Wildly Strollin' with Ben Pounds 