EN 107 Term 2 Week 3 Caryl Churchill

EN 107, Term 2 Week 3 Caryl Churchill, Top Girls

Today’s class • Second essay • Top Girls (1982) • Student presentation • Context: 1982 • Discussion

Date: 1982 • Context as question: how does Top Girls look back at issues we’ve seen before?

Date: 1982 • Thatcherism and the 1980 s • Still in a sense dominant economic, cultural paradigm • Neoliberalism: new understanding of “freedom” • In: economic, military • Out: social • In effect: focus away from regions, towards capital

New card: Doubling • Very specific feature of plays: same actor assigned to different parts • Partially function of utility… • …yet contrasts often implied • What can we make of the doubling in Top Girls? (pg. 2)

New card: America • How does this play, if at all, reference America? • Favorable/superior • Negatively

Ensemble • Why are these characters together? • What characters are on stage at any given moment? • Who understands other characters’ dialogue, and who fails to? • Are there multiple overlapping worlds onstage? • Characters in multiple times, places, settings • What juxtapositions are created?

Plot (revised) • Does the play possess a consistent plot? • Is this plot fulfilled? • Sequence • Sequential • Non-sequential • Sequence unclear • What part of the play’s plot occurs onstage? What part takes place offstage? • Why does the play choose this particular part of the plot— why significant?

Gender • Does the play specify gender for its characters? • How are the play’s characters divided by gender? • Are the opportunities for performance divided by gender? • How, if at all, is the audience addressed in regards to gender? • How does gender intersect with class?

Class • Does the play assign class to the characters? (If not: significant? ) • To what social classes do the various characters belong, and how are these expressed? • • Speech Embodiment Action Attention of play • How, if at all, is the audience addressed in regards to class? • How does class intersect with gender?