Can a 28-year-old play about societal values still pack a punch? Unfortunately, yes, which means we haven’t fixed it yet.
If Top Girls isn’t the shocker it was when Caryl Churchill’s play first appeared on a London stage in 1982, it’s only because we’ve seen enough to recognize the problems. The current production at Northern Kentucky University is a well-turned out portrayal of women behaving badly, as they take on the very characteristics criticized in ambitious men. But what’s a girl to do? If she wants a career, that is?
In Top Girls there’s one kid, a single-minded career woman and a whole lot of goings-on that ramble through history to consider where women were in society and what they did about it. These historical excursions take place in Act I, at an unlikely dinner party thrown by the single-minded career woman, who has just had an advance in position and, no doubt, in salary.
Top Girls continues at Northern Kentucky University through April 3 in repertory with Omnium Gatherum. Read Jane Durrell's review and get showtimes and buy tickets here.
