Motherhood

Introduction

Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls" opens on a grotesque note. Women meet in a chi-chi restaurant to salute one of their own, a modern executive on the way up. They are happy for Marlene, who has just been promoted to managing director of the Top Girls Employment Agency (Churchill offers Marlene as the symbolic apex of feminism, both with good and serious repercussions), but the gab always falls back on individual stories. The hardships of being a woman link this group, and times were tough no matter what century you have hung your hat.

At Cal State Fullerton, this first, rather interminable scene comes at you in a blur, a conflagration of vague talk made hazier by shifting technique (the choppy English accents are hard on the ear). Director Joseph Arnold's student cast (all female) fails to bring average clarity to this crucial passage, or the rest of this gabby, often frustrating play. Churchill, who can be thoughtfully, wonderfully surreal and satisfyingly vivid (think of "Cloud Nine"), let the lecturer's overarching need to make points weigh her down in "Top Girls." There's little involving drama in this feminist tract-tale, first produced in 1982. At least there's something of a tale. After the opening passage, Churchill takes a U-turn toward naturalism, focusing on Marlene in '80s London. Many of the actresses we first meet as Pope Joan (Joni Davis), Dull Gret (Kirsten Simone Vangsness) and Isabella Bird (Lesley Fera), among others, now takes on other roles in a contemporary setting. Marlene's story is one of barbed give-and-take. This beautiful career woman has gone very far in business, but she is paid an exorbitant price. We learn about the cost of her advancement later, as we learn a little about several tangential characters, their attitudes and lifestyles.

As for the performances, they reflect Arnold's unfocused staging, which could use sharper pacing (at least keep the dialogue from colliding). When dealing with relatively obtuse creations, the audience depends on the actors to pull it through. This is especially obvious when trying to grasp the significance of Churchill's double-Decker role-playing. There are fragments of resonance that give clues and draw us in, but really only the last scene-when and her sister, Joyce (Fera), hash out their mixed feelings for each other and the paths they've taken-brings acuteness to "Top Girls." Augustin and Fera, who provide the production's steadier performances, pull us through at least for a few moments.

Discussion

Caryl Churchill's writing is fresh. Her viewpoints are imaginative and often improbable. Her leftist politics are clear and uncompromising, her feminism insistent. When she attacks the social and political policies of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party, Churchill seethes with the anger of youth. Yet she is 52, married for nearly 30 years to the same man and the mother of three grown children. Churchill, whose "Serious Money" will be premiered in the Twin Cities Wednesday by The Theatre Exchange, came late to the stage. She did not enter the theatrical mainstream until 1972 with "Owners," which premiered at London's Royal ...