Top Girls

by Caryl Churchill

Venue:                      The Substation

Dates/Times:           2 to 7 March 2003

A feminist classic from the eighties, Top Girls deals with the role of women in society.

The play opens with a dinner party attended by famous women from different periods in history, all of whom have had to make major sacrifices to succeed in a male-dominated world. The question is posed: Is this situation ever going to change, or will the protagonist, Marlene, have to make the same sacrifices to get ahead?

Top Girls also examines a topic close to the hearts of many Singaporean parents: the fate of the children left behind by the education system. Through sheer ruthlessness and determination, businesswoman Marlene goes from strength to strength in her career, while her niece, Angie, becomes a school drop-out and her sister ends up cleaning houses for a living.

Written by award-winning British playwright Caryl Churchill when Britain’s ‘top girl’ was Margaret Thatcher, Top Girls still feels fresh and relevant today, and was recently voted one of the National Theatre’s top 20 plays of the twentieth century.

The Stage Club’s production, directed by Jeremy Samuel and starring Melissa Wansin Wong (Confessions of Three Unmarried Woman, Honk!), Christie Chua (The White Road) and Barbara Proctor (Shakespeare On Love), offers Singaporean audiences a unique opportunity to see this exciting and thought-provoking text brought to life.