This weekend sees the second piece to go up in the Little Theater in recent weeks that has featured exclusively women in acting roles. Earlier this semester there was ntozake shanges's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, and now there is Top Girls, which makes one all the more conscious of the wealth of talent on this campus.
This powerful play may be familiar to many students, as it has been taught in recent years. It is a complex and rich piece offering many challenges to any director and cast. This production as a whole rises to the challenge, but it is not always easy going.
This production is the Honors Project for director and college senior Monica Flory. One imagines it will be well received. Flory should be commended for even approaching such a difficult text, and for assembling a talented cast and presenting a coherent interpretation of a complex work.
The cast works very well together, a fact which is evident in the rather confusing opening scene. In this scene, the central character, a business woman in contemporary London, Marlene, is dining with various women from different periods in world history. The characters are all broad and by turns funny and sad, and represent the states of women throughout the world and history.
Particularly strong in this scene, as well as throughout the production, is first-year Sheila Donovan, who plays Isabella Bird, a Victorian woman, and later Angie, Marlene's niece. As Bird, Donovan is loud and filled with a stuffy self-importance which is initially hilarious and eventually annoying. The characters often speak at the same time, their voices overlapping, but it is easy to make out Bird's voice above the rest, for better or for worse. Donovan's presence is wonderful, and it is very affecting to see the transition she accomplishes when she next appears on-stage as Angie. She is one of the greater strengths of this production.
The only actor who appears in one role is college sophomore Abby Rasminsky, who plays Marlene. She is a complex character, who has made difficult decisions in order to rise to the top in her career. On one hand she is thoroughly admirable, on the other thoroughly despicable. Rasminsky does a strong job of bringing forth both sides of the character, when it would have been very easy to present only one.
To play Marlene as the strong no-nonsense business woman would have been very effective in one sense, doing justice to the feminist tone of the play, but it would have ignored any other interpretation and simplified the text. It is wonderful that neither Rasminsky nor Flory settled for this.
The rest of the small cast plays two or three roles each, allowing the actors a wonderful range of material. College sophomore Lauren Jacobs gives a powerful performance as Joyce, Marlene's sister. The chemistry between the sisters is very evident in one long scene which they share. Jacobs also turns in a strong performance as Dull Gret, who would seem to be all comic relief in the opening scene, but turns out to be something far less two-dimensional.
Junior Sarah McGuire is very affecting as Pope Joan in the opening scene - her terrible, yet captivating tale takes center stage for a moment and McGuire carries the moment wonderfully. Later, as she prays in Latin over the voices of the other women the scene acquires a whole new almost frightening quality which is very powerful.
Emily Henning has her shining moment as the wife of a co-worker who has been passed over for a promotion which was awarded instead to Marlene. The scene between the two women is brief, yet very powerful, and both Henning and Rasminsky shine.
In both of her roles - as Lady Nijo and the young Kit - college sophomore Alison Minami is very strong. She looks so young that she is far more believable as Kit, but she manages to convey a range of emotion as Lady Nijo. In particular, she is very affecting at the end of the first scene, where she begins to have a breakdown of sorts.
College sophomore Lauren Greilsheimer rounds out the cast. Her strongest moment is as Shona, a young woman hoping to secure a job through Marlene's Top Girls employment agency.
The production has some action is broken by the long set change.
This is unfortunate, since for the most part the pacing of the play is handled very well. But the actors do seem a bit thrown by the shifts in scene, as is only understandable. It also seems a bit off to run the show with an intermission. An understandable decision, certainly, but the play is not that long, and would be served well by going up without interruption.
One other particularly problematic scene is the last scene. Though well-acted, it may be a bit confusing for audiences to sense that this scene actually takes place before the previous scenes. It is a significant moment though, and without this understanding there would appear to be some gaps in continuity. The text is tricky here, and the production should have been a bit more careful in its handling of the moment.
On the whole, though, Flory and her cast and crew have done a strong job of bringing this piece to life, and it would be a shame to miss a thought-provoking evening.
Top Girls shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.in Little Theater. Admision is $2 OCID, $3 senior citizens, $4 general public. All seats $2 more at the door.
Cheers: Women throughout world history wine and dine together one evening in Carly Churchill's Top Girls. (photo by Zach Fried)
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 8, November 7, 1997
Contact us with your comments and suggestions.