Top Girls

Thank goodness I hadn't read the review of Top Girls before I went to see it this afternoon. My greater shame is that I haven't seen it before. That being said I thoroughly enjoyed it apart from the fact that the theatre was air conditioned to a level that was catering for warmer weather.
With very well chilled ankles I enjoyed the performances of Mary Catherine Garrison, Mary Beth Hurt, Jennifer Ikeda, Elizabeth Marvel, Martha Plimpton, Ana Reeder, and Marisa Tomei. The play is described by MTC as "set at the Top Girls Employment Agency in London in the early 1980s, this groundbreaking, theatrical play tells the story of Marlene, an ambitious career woman who has just been appointed head of the firm. But as she celebrates her achievements, can we applaud her values? This bold and ingenious work from the singularly talented author of Far Away and Cloud Nine offers one of the theatre's most honest portraits of what it means to be a woman in the modern world. Directed by James Macdonald, who staged the New York premiere of Ms. Churchill's A Number (which I have also seen and enjoyed).
Other than being really cold during the show I had a great conversation with woman sitting next to me- Peggy- she too is a regular at MTC and we shared view of great productions in and around NYC- a very pleasant way to spend the intermissions.
In terms of the production I thought the staging was excellent- the use of players to change and set scenes worked well for me and the basic sets created the environments of the office, the restaurant and the house in suburban urban England. The piece de la resistance for me was the "cubby" in the backyard and the performance of the young and immature by Martha Plimpton and her friend Louise??? (in Churchill's script I think her name is Kit) played by Mary Beth Hurt. The nuances and naiveté of the adolescences relationships was gently and dexterously played. Their scenes could have gone on and on and I would have been content. Unfortunately Marisa Tomei's accent went up and down England in a single sentence but when it mattered in the final scene her performance was finely tuned. (The dialect consultant should be slaughtered just as some of the actors slaughtered the accent- the pronunciation of the word "so" was unrecognisable)
Having been so scathing and critical I did enjoy the show! And I'm finally warm.