“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to the United States Congress, said.
This is an underlying message found in “Top Girls,” a play by Caryl Churchill set in the 1980s focused on women and the female struggle for power.
Opening at the Lab Theatre on Friday, March 31, “Top Girls” gives undergraduate actresses and MFA candidates a chance to showcase their talents.
The play, in a very postmodern way, jumps throughout time and space, making the setting both fascinating and distorting. The beginning scene is set in a restaurant where main character Marlene is celebrating her promotion, where she was promoted over a male colleague vying for the same position. Her guests, however, are not fellow co-workers; instead, she has invited five other successful (in their own ways) women: Cull Gret, Lady Nijo, Isabella Bird, Pope Joan and Patient Griselda. While some of her guests are historical figures, others come from art, like Cull Gret, who comes from a Brueghel painting, and Patient Griselda, who comes from Boccaccio and Chaucer.
The scene itself is humorous, with the most relatable character (for anyone who has had a job in the food industry) being the waitress, played by junior Alyssa Miller. While the other women are entertaining, witty and in many ways, inspiring, Miller, as the waitress, subtlety enhances the scene’s situational comedy. Every time she comes to refill the wine, watching as the empowering women of the dinner party become increasingly drunk, her facial expressions remind the audience that it is perfectly acceptable to crack up laughing at the absurdity of the women — each trying to talk over one another in an attempt to tell their story.
One actress who stood out both in the program and on the stage was Celeste Pelletier, a freshman in mechanical engineering. Pelletier’s parts included Cull Gret, Kit and Shona, with each character proving once again that Pelletier has a knack for comedy as well as the ability to turn those comic moments serious. If the play’s program did not exist, no one would ever guess that Pelletier was a freshman or that she was not a theatre major. Her spectacular performance was both versatile and hilarious. In fact, one of my favorite (and, honestly, this is something I’ve done before) moments was when Cull Gret began to fill her basket with bread silently, downing wine as she did, while the other women loudly spoke over one another.
While each of the actresses on stage were brilliant, I must take a moment to praise Emily Helton, who played Isabella Bird, Joyce and Mrs. Kidd. Throughout the Clarence Brown Theatre’s 2016-17 season, I have gone to every play and seeing her first in “The Crucible” then in “A Christmas Carol” was absolutely chilling. While never forgetting the comic element of her characters, Helton has a way of demanding attention.
Helton’s portrayal of Joyce, the sister of Marlene, during Act 2, Scene 2 was incredibly powerful. While the play goes along with the modern trend of fast-talking, the most chilling and somber moments of the play were in the moments of absolute silence, and Helton proved this as she, playing Joyce, waited for Marlene to finish tucking Angie (Joyce’s daughter) in before bed, where Angie has promised to tell Marlene a secret.
Supplementing the acting was well-choreographed lighting and superb set design. The clean-cut and minimalist sets allowed me to focus on what really matters — the content — while also giving clues as to the setting of the act, which is incredibly important in a play that skips through time and place quickly. The lighting, likewise, allowed the tone to easily shift from comedic to serious throughout without seeming jarring.
The stage and the play is filled with different examples of womanhood, from Marlene, the working woman with a dedication to making it to the top, to Patient Griselda, the faithful and dutiful wife who will do anything her husband tells her without question or hesitation.
As the playwright Churchill said, “I quite deliberately left a hole in the play, rather than giving people a model of what they could be like. I meant the thing that is absent to have a presence in the play.”
Clarence Brown Theatre’s Lab Theatre will have their last performance of “Top Girls” on Sunday, April 16, at 2 p.m., with showings almost everyday prior at 7:30 p.m.. Special performances will include an actor talk back after the matinee performance at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 9, and an open-captioned matinee to conclude the play’s run. For a full schedule and tickets, visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.
