Caryl Churchill was born in London on September 3, 1938, she grew up both in England and in Canada, living in Montreal from 1948 - 1955. ... Whilst at Oxford, Churchill wrote many student productions :’Downstairs’, written in 1958, a one act play which went to the National Union of Students, Sunday Times drama festival in 1959, ‘Having a Wonderful Time‘ written in 1960, ‘Easy Death’ and the student sound production ‘Youve No Need to be Frightened‘, both in 1961. ...
Writing for radio forced Churchill to develop a certain style which would eventually serve her very well in her later work for stage. ...
In 1974, Caryl Churchill began her evolution to the stage, she worked under the title of resident dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre from 1974-75, while Churchill was in this position ‘Turkish Delight‘ was televised by the BBC. ... "
While working with Joint Stock and Monstrous Regiment, Churchill wrote a number of successful plays including ‘Light Shining in Buckinghamshire’ with Joint Stock Theatre and ‘Vinegar Tom’ with Monstrous Regiment, both in 1976, ‘Cloud Nine’ in 1979, and ‘A Mouthful of Birds’ in 1986 which opened at Birmingham Repertory Theatre on September 2nd, Churchill wrote both of these with Joint Stock.
Churchill continued to use improvisational workshops in the development of some of her later plays.
‘Mad Forest: A Play from Romania’, first performed on stage on 25th June 1990 at the London Central School of Speech and Drama, was written after Churchill, along with the director, Mark Wing-Davey and a group of student actors from the school went to Romania to work with acting students there. ...
Caryl Churchill married David Harter on May 20th 1961, their first son Joe was born on April 26th 1962, their second son Paul was born on December 5th 1964 and their third son was born on September 30th 1969. ... And Top Girls came joint 16th place in the Royal National Theatres Survey of the Twentieth-Century Most Significant Plays.
Top Girls
“I remember before I wrote Top Girls thinking about women barristers - and how they were in a minority and had to imitate men to succeed - and I was thinking of them as different to me. ... ” Caryl Churchill.
It has been said that the feminine quality of Churchill’s writing is due to her preferring dialogue to conflict and open endedness to climax. The dialogue in Top Girls covers a wide range of predicaments and situations endured by and affecting women all over the world and throughout history.
“The ideas for Top Girls came from all kinds of things … There’d been the idea of a play about a lot of dead women having coffee with someone from the present. ... All those ideas fed into Top Girls. ... ” Churchill, explain the origins of the play.
Top Girls shows many examples of women who are or were treated badly by men. ... There are no straightforward answers offered and situations are often inconclusive, Churchill achieved this by the use of overlapping dialogue and changing from scene to scene, then a different timeframe so that each storyline feels unfinished, allowing the audience to use their imagination. ... Churchill explores the notion that the majority of women who give up their children do so in an attempt to advance in life, though the characters of Marlene, Nijo and Griselda who all seem to let their children go without a second thought, but also through Pope Joan who knew she was pregnant but chose to ignore it so that she would not lose her position as pope.
Churchill often appears to find a writing single play too small a canvas to work with. This is why, in plays like Top Girls Churchill uses two or three acts to show distinctive sections, giving the impression of more than one different but connected plays.
The ideas and themes that run right through Top Girls connect to the time that the play was written. ... Top Girls, carries the idea of driving ahead into the 1980’s and shows this change of female consciousness, radical
Feminism is never discussed because the women in the play are not intimidated by men.
Top Girls is a mix of strong feminist issues and feminine needs. ...
The characters in Act 1, Scene 1 of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, stand as symbols of successful women in various times and places through the past 1200 years. ...
Top Girls is divided into three Acts. ...
Act Two comprises of three scenes, they are set in the ‘Top Girls’ Employment Agency, and Joyce’s back garden. ... This scene slows the rhythm of the play by the dominance of the conversation between the two little girls, Kit and Angie.
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