《Top Girl》尉氏青衣

1、第 1 章

　　The Endemic Enigma of women: on Caryl Churchill's Top Girls

　　The play Top Girls is fantastic as it brings us a new view of women through the combination of women in different ages and places; what's more, it dissects the modern phenomenon of career women and brings us a worth thinking problem: Whether it is possible for women in society to combine a successful career with a thriving family life?
　　The stage is set in Britain and implicitly condemns the increasing incidence of Thatcherite values in society, and especially their effect on Feminism. In this era, women, unprecedentedly, try their best to pursue their own success in their career, as men usually do, for the purpose of realizing their own value which is more than a housewife. However, women have much more obstacles in their career life: less chance to be promoted, the feudal criticisms as a housewife. Honestly, it is so hard for women to achieve such a perfect balance between their career and family that they often have to make a difficult choice.
　　In the view of Top Girls, this kind of embarrassing situation of women is out of history and modern competition.
　　The play is famous for its dreamlike opening sequence in which Marlene meets famous women from history, including Pope Joan, who, disguised as a man, is thought to have been pope between 854-856; the explorer Isabella Bird; Dull Gret the harrower of Hell; Lady Nijo, the Japanese mistress of an emperor and later a Buddhist nun; and Patient Griselda, the patient wife from The Clerk's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In the dreamlike opening part, Marlene is depicted as a successful businesswoman, and all her guests from different ages celebrate her promotion in the 'Top Girls' employment agency. All of these characters behave like a gang of city career women out on the town and get increasingly drunk and maudlin, as it is revealed that each has suffered in similar ways. This celebration is novel as all the guests are of different style: Pope is manlike and trying to be the dominator; Nijo lives only for man; Griselda is a traditional obedient woman. They stand out for all kind of women in the history, depressed or assimilated by the male dominator and their gathering reveals a demand, in terms of women, to have a better life, which has less depression and more freedom in the male-dominated world.
　　In the next scene we jump to the present (early 80s) where we see Marlene at work in the surprisingly masculine world of the female staff of the agency, in which the ladies of 'Top Girls' must be tough and insensitive in order to compete with men. There is freedom as well as fierce competition, which turn the relationship between men and women into rivals or even enemies. The tough competition, which requires much time and energy, also prevents Marlene from her family life as the marriage life will be a big burden to a career woman.
　　The play argues against the style of feminism that simply turns women into new patriarch and argues for a more socialist feminism that is about caring for the weak and downtrodden.
　　In the final scene, the notion, which reveals that Marlene was Angie's real mother, as well as the political quarrel between the sisters shifts the emphasis of the play and formulates new questions about the choice between career and family.
　　This play depicts the life of Marlene, a hard-bitten career woman,leaving her working class background to pursue financial success, leaving her illegitimate child with her apparently infertile sister, Joyce.
　　Frankly, Marlene is seemingly soulless, exploiting other women and suppressing her own caring instincts in the cause of success, bearing the pain of loneliness together with the loss of her own daughter. On the one hand, she is enviable because she is quite talented and successful as a professional; on the other hand, she deserves compassion as a loner worthy of her name.
　　What's more, there are hundreds or thousands of women, suffering the similar pain with Marlene and face the difficult choice. If a successful woman needs career more than family, it means the world is less humanized; if a successful woman needs to sacrifice her own dream to please the society, those housewives will be psychologically ill.
　　After all, this is a world consists of women and men, the choice for women is also for men, and they should face it together and find their answer.

作者有话说

　　As Feminism swept the whole world, women are realizing they have the choice and deserve to have the choice to be equal to men. But there are still many obstacles in the way, and in terms to solve all these, women, together with men, should figure out a proper way.