Another look at far-sighted 'Girls'
The opening scene of Caryl Churchill's 1982 feminist fantasia ''Top Girls" is one of the most memorable in contemporary theater, says director Jo Bonney.
''But people tend to forget the rest of the play and what it says," says Bonney, who's directing a revival of the play, which opened last night at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Like much of Churchill's work, the play is eerily prescient, and somewhat depressing.
''Top Girls" opens in an upscale London restaurant in the early '80s, the outset of the Thatcher era. Marlene, a cocktail-swilling power woman, is hosting a dinner party to celebrate her promotion to managing director of the Top Girls employment agency.
Five female figures from world history, art, and myth are her guests -- including a figure from a Breughel painting and Pope Joan. ''It's very funny and over the top," says Bonney.
But the dinner devolves, as unflappable Marlene toasts female accomplishment, the dinner guests get drunk and maudlin, and Pope Joan vomits in a corner.
''This is a play that predicts what's happened when people have tried to balance relationships and careers and motherhood, and it's very hard," says Bonney.
''It's also scary in the extent to which it named what was happening in Thatcher's England -- the gap between the haves and have-nots -- that is also happening now."
''Top Girls" runs through July 31 at the Williamstown Festival. For tickets, call 413-597-3400 or visit www.wtfestival.org.
Also opening
''Top Girls" wasn't the only theater opening of note in the Berkshires last evening.
Jonathan Epstein, an actor and director best known locally for his star turns with Shakespeare & Company, plays a pivotal role in Ron Hutchinson's 1984 ''Rat in the Skull," at the Berkshire Theatre Festival's Unicorn Theatre.
Also scheduled to open last night was the Barrington Stage Company production of Oscar Wilde's ''The Importance of Being Earnest." Tony Award winner Carole Shelley plays Lady
For tickets to ''Rat in the Skull," which runs through Aug. 6, call 866-811-4111 or 413-298-5576; visit www.berkshiretheatre.org.
For tickets to ''Earnest," call 413-528-8888 or visit www.barringtonstageco.org.
