Margaret Thatcher is dead! I despise everything she stood for, from her support of the apartheid regime, to everything she ever did in relation to Ireland, to her dismantling of the society she claimed didn’t exist, the miners, Pinochet, etc.
Tonight I am digging out my copy of “Top Girls” by Caryl Churchill from 1982 I think. I first read this play when I was 18 and it was the first time I was ever brought to question the allegedly feminist and definitely neo-liberal ideal of the career woman, who climbs high on the backs of other people and then shits all over those below you. I loved it at first read and have always half dreamed of directing / acting in it. It’s still very potent and relevant, especially as British people continue to suffer so much under Tory governance.
Whilst also featuring Isabella Bird, Lady Nijo, Dull Gret, Pope Joan (my fave pope! check out the film!) Top Girls focuses on two sisters, the daughter of one of them, and what it means to be a “successful woman”. The play is partially set in an employment agency argues that just achieving the same thing that men are taught to want to achieve in a capitalist society is not enough!
There are so many good parts in this play I can’t even start to quote them – you’ll just have to go see the whole bloody thing next time it’s on! Or ask me to act it out over the internet for you!
xo m