Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
During the ‘greed is good’ ‘80s and the tumultuous era of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, London-born playwright Caryl Churchill informed her scathing political satires with an examination of feminist themes — challenging and charting the evolving notions of gender and sexuality in the workplace. Her plays were bold, different, and felt thrillingly immediate. They were of their time, yet they still scorch. Read more…
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway
Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, is a play considered a modern classic, but for some unknown reason it doesn’t seem to get produced very often. One would think there would be quite a lot of theatre companies looking for a play with plenty of interesting roles for women, but I’ve been reviewing theatre in L.A. since 1997, and this is the first time I’ve seen it done. Read more…
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter
The 1982 Top Girls starts with a loopily sustained tour de force: a dinner party to celebrate the elevation of Marlene (Rebecca Mozo) to a top management post at her London job placement firm at which the guests are all legendary prototypical women of centuries past. From the mythical 9th-century Pope Joan (Elizabeth Swain) to Lady Nijo (Kimiko Gelman), the 13th century concubine to the Japanese Emperor (and later itinerant Buddhist nun), to Griselda (Shannon Lee Clair), the prototypical obedient wife from Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer and numerous operas, to Dull Gret (aka Mad Meg) (Abigail Marks), a folkloric Flemish peasant immortalized in the painting by Bruegel the Elder in 1562, and finally celebrity Victorian naturalist and explorer Isabella Bird (Karianne Flaathen), they comprise one helluva guest list. Read more.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
In the famous first scene of Top Girls, Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play about gender and class, a group of celebrated women from history and literature gather at a restaurant for food, drink and convivial conversation. They arrive at the behest of Marlene (Sally Hughes and Rebecca Mozo, alternating in this double-cast production at Antaeus Company), the steely up-and-coming manager of a top-notch London employment agency and an enthusiastic supporter of Thatcherism, with its twin notions of free market and personal responsibility. Read more…
Now running through May 4.