In an essay of 1500 words consider the ways in which Top Girls challenges traditional uses of language and play structure.

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In an essay of 1500 words consider the ways in which Top Girls challenges traditional uses of language and play structure.

Top Girls by Caryl Churchill dramatises contemporary life in 1980s Britain depicting a time of change and shifting priorities and expectations as far as women were concerned within society. The period was characterised by Britain’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  Yet unlike the country’s political agenda, Theatre was not driven by a female force.  Women’s Theatre was marginal and even Churchill recognised that her ‘whole concept of what plays might be’ was ‘from plays written by men’ (p.xxii,TG).  It is from this position that I shall consider the ways in which the play challenges traditional uses of language and structure. It is important to note however that plays in having no narrator cannot strictly be read as a stand alone text; it is more complex than this involving other factors such as performance and theatre presentation (sets, costumes and stage directions). In considering these factors (‘dramaturgy’p181 L&G) it shall enable us to draw meaning from conceptual, visual and to a lesser degree performance issues in relation to the question of language and play structure of Top Girls.

Plays were traditionally divided into five Acts, and would adhere to the classical model - exposition, climax and denouement – including conventions attributed by Aristotle such as:  anagnorisis (recognition or discovery by character) and peripeteia (reversal of fortunes). By comparison Top Girls has an episodically form of three Acts, abandoning a forward moving plot and realist conventions of time and place.  There is no exposition at the beginning of Churchill’s play.  In Act One Marlene’s fantasy dinner party (akin to The Mad Hatters Tea Party) introduces characters that are not seen or mentioned again in the play.  The structure is fragmented and the location of the action changes from one scene to the next with little connection (restaurant, employment agency, Joyce’s backyard). However, each location depicted by Churchill whether imaginary or realistic relays a space in which women express themselves.

Churchill further challenges traditional play structure through the absence of climax.  Angie never discovers the truth of her parentage (anagnorisis) and none of the characters experience a reversal of fortunes (peripeteia).  Instead Churchill presents the reader/audience with a subconscious dilemma.  Is Marlene a bad mother for abandoning her child for her career or is her position endemic of the difficulties faced by all women combining motherhood and career?  In this sense the play is ironic.  Whereas as the opening Act may lead us to believe the play was intended as a celebration of women’s achievements, the action that follows presents the dire consequences (primarily de-feminisation) of women operating in a man’s world.

The final Act is based in the past (one year earlier) and therefore the end of the play is not aligned with the end of the action it claims to represent.  There is no resolution, with Churchill replacing traditional denouement with open-endedness.  

In Top Girls Churchill undoubtedly challenged the ‘maleness’ (p.xxii,TG) of traditional play structure through juxtaposition of contrasting scenes, themes and characters.  This non-linear structure was interpreted by the French theorist Helen Cixous as being ‘the rhythm of women’s lives’ (p233 L&G), representing the conflicting roles affecting women – daughter, wife, mother and breadwinner.  Just as there is no solution for the difficulties experienced by the women at Marlene’s dinner party, at the end of the play there is still no solution allowing women to have it all.  

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The central theme of Top Girls and thus its structure is based on these themes which Benedict Nightingale reflects in a quote from the New Statesman 1982 p.xxxv TG.  

Instead we are invited to reflect on the advantages of ‘female emancipation…if it transforms the clever women into predators and does nothing for the stupid, weak and helpless? (p.xxxv,TG)

{Include what rest of what quote says but without using quote directly}

In appreciating the play’s structure I would now like to consider the idea that Top Girls is a play which explicitly concentrates on ...

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