Top Girls

When Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1982, the unsuspecting audience was unaware that Margaret Thatcher was only a fraction of her way through her long leadership term as Prime Minister of the UK. In her play, Churchill deals with the shifting social sands as well as the feminist implications of Thatcher’s tenure. The playwright starts her piece with a party of historical female dinner guests – not the usual suspects – arranged by newly promoted ‘Top Girls’ employment agency exec, Marlene (Aurelie Roque) in 1979. She has conjured a scene featuring 19th-century explorer and writer, Isabella Bird (Natasha McDonald), 13th-century concubine and Buddhist nun, Lady Nijo (Jazz Zhao), Dull Gret, as painted by Bruegel (Chelsea Doran), Griselda from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Brigitte Freeme) and Pope Joan, who reigned briefly disguised as a man in the middle ages (Anastasia Benham).

While I don’t enjoy Churchill’s device of overlapping dialogue, this opening scene is a brilliant way of jarring your usual thinking about colourful and unlikely feminist icons. Xanthe Jones has done a wonderful job with the costume design, creating a three-dimensional artwork from the characters, akin to a Bayeux Tapestry or a ‘Last Supper’ style feast for the eyes. Director, Mikayla Hosking, controls the action superbly and avoids too many obscured lines in a pinpoint performance by a fascinating ensemble of Brisbane’s own Top Girls. There are certainly no weak links in this cast of charms, with each actor showing strength in drama and comedy, as they also play other ‘modern’ characters in the employment agency. Emmy Moore joins Chelsea Doran as disturbing 1970s teens, Kit and Angie, who have aspirations to escape their dull homes in the north of England to get to London on the cusp of the promising new decade. When Angie’s story intersects with Marlene at the job agency, the themes discussed earlier at the dinner party – motherhood, giving up children for a career, following your passion in life – mindfully meld, making for a thoughtful piece of theatre.

I admire Ad Astra’s courage to take on theatre pieces from England and America that could easily be dismissed as outdated or irrelevant to an Australian audience. It’s great to experience these plays as intended – with a vibrant cast bringing the texts to life. For this feminist piece, the whole creative team are women and include Assistant Director Samara Louise, Stage Manager Lara Rix, Assistant Stage Manager, Petria Leong, Lighting Design by Claire Yorston, and a suitably nifty 1970s Sound Design by Rosie Richardson. The capacity crowd of theatre-goers proves there’s an appetite for reflective drama that’s well cast and succinctly produced by a top creative team.

Beth Keehn

Photo credit: @lifeofrileypictures

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Find out more: www.adastracreativity.com/productions/top-girls