Top Girls

By Sophie DonovanSilo Theatre's season of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls kicked off on Friday night with Danielle Cormack taking centre stage as Marlene, the play's career-driven, icy protagonist. Set in Thatcher's England, the play examines the compromises women make in order to succeed in their careers and questions whether it is possible to balance a career and family. Top Girls opens with a dinner party scene where five female historical or fictional figures join Marlene to celebrate her promotion to Managing Director of the employment agency she works at. This would have been a difficult scene to stage, but the Silo team did a brilliant job. The scene is side-splitingly funny at times, but it also covers some heavy stuff about each character's respective trials and tribulations as a woman of their time. The play returns to 1980s England for the final two acts where we see the contrast between a Thatchereque mode of thinking; high-flying women who emulate patriarchal qualities, and a socialist feminism, caring for the weak and oppressed. A stand out performance came from Bronwyn Bradley who doubles as bolshy Victorian traveller Isabella Bird and working class mother Joyce. Although it may be set in the 1980s Top Girls hits home about what it means to be a women in the modern world and the price of achievement. We have 2x double passes to Top Girls to give away, click here to enter.