Production of “Top Girls” Staged at CSU, Chico April 2-6
Hey, girls! Want to have it all? Great job plus a home, happy marriage, exotic travel, political power, money, social status and, of course, children?
Find out what all that’s really going to cost you when the CSU, Chico’s School of the Arts and the Theatre Department presents Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls” at 7:30 p.m. on April 2-5 and at 2 p.m. on April 5 and 6 in the Wismer Theatre.
“Churchill has written a powerful play, often funny, sometimes brutal, about the choices women have to make between motherhood and success in a man’s world,” said director William Johnson, a professor in the Department of Theatre.
Marlene — our heroine — has just been promoted to managing director of Top Girls Employment Agency in London.
To celebrate, she hosts an elegant dinner party attended by some other extraordinary women from history, literature and art, including Lady Nijo (12th century Japanese imperial courtesan turned Buddhist nun), Pope Joan (disguised as a man, she is thought to have been Pope between 854-856 A.D.) and Patient Griselda (a character in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales).
In a series of scenes that move forward and backward in time, Marlene struggles with herself, her colleagues, and her family to reconcile the person she envisions herself to be with the decisions and consequences of her past.
Starring as Marlene, sophomore Paige Patterson will lead the play’s all female cast. The other students will each portray several characters.
Cast members include: Nikki Allair as the waitress and Kit; Marianne Riera as Isabella Bird, Joyce, and Mrs. Kidd; Lauren Cipoletti as Lady Nijo, Win, and Shona; Fig Chilocott as Dull Gret and Angie; Cindy Kay as Pope Joan, Louise, and Nell; and Lindsay Schmeltzer as Patient Griselda and Jeanine.
“These women are among the most exceptional students in our department,” Johnson said. “They all play characters of differing types from differing cultures and time periods requiring two or three different dialects and physical manners.”
Helping the actors meet these challenges, Theatre faculty member (and Johnson’s wife) Cynthia Lammel has been working extensively with individual actors outside of the regular rehearsals as the production’s text, voice, and dialect director.
The Wismer Theatre will be set up in the round for this production and scenic designer Marty Gilbert, professor emeritus, has created interchangeable set pieces which the actors use to transform the stage space into all the locations needed for the play right in front of the audience.
Costume Designer Annaliese Baker, a new lecturer in the Theatre Department, has created a mix of high style 1980s fashion for the modern characters and sumptuous historical garb for the characters at Marlene’s dinner party.
Theatre major Amanda Makieve is designing the play’s lighting, while recording arts major Sean Popejoy will orchestrate the sound design.
Other student members of the production team include Stage Manager Juliette Oliver, Assistant Stage Manager Paula Buresh, and Costume Design Assistant Stacy Park.
Although “Top Girls” was written and first performed in 1982 at London’s Royal Court Theatre and New York’s Public Theatre, Johnson observed that “a look at the headlines, not to mention the number of women’s names listed in our program (including our costume designer, Annaliese, who just gave birth to her first child last week), will tell you that the play is just as relevant, maybe more so, today. In fact, it is being revived again this spring in New York in its Broadway debut.”
“On the surface,” Johnson continued, “the play’s concerns are feminist and political, but the strong current underneath that drives the play forward is a plea for humane, social, and economic justice. Churchill uses humor, candor, and some startling conflicts to bash away at the entrenched political, social and religious ideologies of both the liberal and conservative establishments.”
Johnson said he has been compelled and challenged by “Top Girls.”
“I am raising two daughters, along with my wife, Cynthia Lammel, who is the voice and dialect director for the production. The play is written by a woman, about women and performed entirely by women, but I think “Top Girls” has some very particular things to say to men about their responsibility for the way things have been and their obligation to help make things right in the future.”
This play is recommended for mature audiences only because of content and language.
Advance tickets, at $15 adults, $13 senior citizens and $6 students and children, are available at the University Box Office, 898-6333. Add $2 for tickets purchased at the door. For disability-related accommodations please call 898-4325.
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— Hillary Feeney
