"Women Still Vying For Equal Footing At Home And Work"
Rita Zekas

In the opening scene of Top Girls, a Soulpepper Theatre production running through Aug. 4 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Kelli Fox descends the staircase in a black Victorian gown with bustle over a black leotard.

How cool, we think. How utterly Queen St. W. meets Galliano.

How wrong.

Fox is playing intrepid Victorian adventuress Isabella Bird. She also plays Joyce, a downtrodden, working-class wife, and meek Mrs. Kidd, whose husband, Howard, is beaten out of a promotion by "ball breaker" Marlene, played by Megan Follows.

The horror, oh the horror! Howard has to work for a woman boss.

Top Girls is Caryl Churchill's 1982 paean to the second wave of feminism and Thatcherism. It was been variously described as "a domestic epic" and a feminist version of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, which it predates.

It opens with group of fictional and historical women in period costume from the 9th through the 20th centuries getting roaring drunk at a resto in celebration of Marlene's promotion and letting down their hair about abuses by their patriarchal societies.

Marlene left the backwater for London and a power job, pencil skirts and great shoes. Joyce stayed at home caring for slow-witted Angie, played by Liisa Repo-Martell.

Director Alisa Palmer has assembled a dream cast of stage and screen actors who have done everything from Anne of Green Gables (Follows) to Godzilla (Cara Pifko) and who play multiple roles. The others are actor/playwright/novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, Diana Donnelly and Robyn Stevan.

So, if Fox's vintage ensemble would fit right in at a Queen St. W. patio, how do these women respond to accusations that the 25-year-old play is dated?

"That's a sexist question," protests MacDonald, who plays Pope Joan.

"The play is not dated," insists Follows. "It's a class polarization that is alive and well. It is in the context of class and gender and family, and I find that relevant."

"The play feels contemporary though it is written in the '80s because it is a chance to put the politics of `now' in context," agrees Donnelly.

"People who said that it is dated have no sense of the glacial pace of the women's movement," adds Fox.

"How unfortunate is it that things haven't changed?" asks Palmer. "We wish it were dated."

"Death of a Salesman is not considered dated but when was the last time you could raise a family in New York on one salary?" points out MacDonald. "The surface issues are specific to Thatcher and Great Britain but the deeper issues make it classic."

Lady Nijo (played by Stevan) and Patient Griselda (Pifko) were forced to give up their children. This still happens, as female babies in some countries are chucked as easily as poinsettias on Boxing Day.

"People say that it's a cultural thing – we can't interfere or judge," says Fox. "All freedom and rights are stripped away but it's the culture. Who are we to judge?"

"I'm all for judging," says MacDonald.

"The sex trade is alive and well," adds Follows. "There is a huge market for the selling of women. You are a commodity. You can't have gender divorced of class politics. This play puts family and the environment on the (kitchen) table."

But everyone concedes that there is a glaring lack of mentorship among the characters.

"There is no solidarity (among the women) in Marlene's office," points out MacDonald.

"And that can't have changed much," says Repo-Martell.

"It's still a boys club," says Stevan.

"We'll all screw people together then," says Repo-Martell.

Then what happens to Marlene, who has the power job?

"Marlene is going, up, up, up," says Follows. "You don't make that kind of a sacrifice without a big payoff."

"Marlene wants to be the Victorian character, who goes off and climbs mountains," says Fox.

As for downtrodden Joyce: "More of the same (drudgery)," says Fox. "Joyce is so trapped into her thinking."

"Feminism has changed," says Palmer.

"You don't want to have it all; you don't want the corporate world. It's not the prize they thought it was. You can have it all but you don't want it all."

"My mom is Finnish," says Repo-Martell. "You get three years' maternity leave there."

"I took seven years off being home with my kids," says Stevan. But her husband worked.

A StatsCan survey released this month shows that women earn an average of 19 per cent less than men. Do male actors make more money?

"Actor's Equity puts out a minimum wage but the fact is that there are fewer parts for women and more brilliant women to fill them," says Fox.

"It can make you unpopular to press for more money," adds Follows.

Male actors never get asked the "bitch" question: How so many female actors can get along without hair pulling and histrionics – especially when camped out in one dressing room, as are the Top Girls.

"When I was working as an artistic director, it was the first time I heard a male actor referred to as `difficult,'" says Palmer.

"Guys are divas, too," agrees MacDonald.

"There is a lot of chocolate in the rehearsal hall," confesses Pifko. "There are the amenities: wholesome things like organic spelt ginger cookies and Coca Cola candies – and nice soft lighting."

"And a lot of drapey fabric," adds Fox.

There was so much female bonding going on, the actors even sat in on each other's rehearsals.

"Women buy the tickets to see shows like this," says Palmer. "This is the first Soulpepper show written by a woman. Ticket sales were powerful for this play even before it opened."

"If it is so dated, how come nobody can get a ticket?" demands Pifko.

As Pope MacDonald would say, amen to that.

Source: Toronto Star