Let's Hear It for Top Girls

Marlene is throwing a small dinner party in honor of her recent promotion to managing director, and she has an intriguing, if impossible, guest list: famous Victorian traveler Isabella Bird; Lady Nijo, the Japanese Emperor's courtesan; legendary Pope Joan; Patient Griselda from the Canterbury Tales; and Dulle Gret, whose sole claim to fame is being painted by Brueghel.

As the opening scene in Top Girls-playing Friday through Sunday in 209 East Duke courtesy of Brown & Green-the party starts out well. But by the time dessert arrives, all the women are drunk, Nijo is sobbing hysterically for her lost children, Joan is retching and chanting in Latin and Gret has delivered a bizarre speech about beating up demons in hell. You might call the party a total disaster.

Fortunately, Top Girls itself is no disaster. In fact, it's one of the first Duke plays I've seen that didn't feel at all overacted. That's quite an achievement, given how long and difficult this play is. There's a lot of simultaneous dialogue, the transitions are tricky, and the overall theme-that women can't find happiness in the male-dominated business world-is a downright downer. But the actresses somehow manage to make this play work-and they make it fun.

The party is the first act of three; from there, we go to Marlene's office. Marlene works in a job placement agency called Top Girls; she is, in the words of one character, "one of those ball-busters." (The play is set in Thatcherite England, so it's not yet un-PC to refer to working women as ball-busters, back-breakers or any other choice b-words.) In the third act, we get to know Marlene's sister Joyce, an abandoned, disheveled housewife with a "slow" daughter. For obvious reasons, Marlene and Joyce don't much like each other.

But we like them. In fact, I liked all the characters in this play, despite how unhappy and whiny and run-down some of them were. Every single one was fleshed out and played well. Caroline Kessler was particularly good as Marlene, Judy Hu made a great catty coworker and the mother-and-daughter combo of Katherine Thompson and Christina Cummings showed real, raw emotion. Thanks to these women, this play lived up to its name.