‘Top Girls’ Wins Sympathy for Britain’s Lower Echelons

With more and more women proudly addressing each other as “girl,” it’s a good excuse to revive Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls.” The new Zoo District Theatre brings the ambitious 1982 comedy back to vigorous life in downtown L.A’s Art Share, a spacious former industrial space with a set of unusually comfortable theater seats.

Churchill painted a stark picture of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain as a place where women could end up in either a cushy but heartless career or a dreary life in domestic servitude. This may sound broadly feminist, but the play finally emerges as a more specific attack on Thatcherite insensitivities toward the girls who aren’t on “top.” Rather than endorsing “I am woman, hear me roar,” the play sounds a warning to those women whose roars are in danger of overwhelming the rest of their lives.

“Top Girls” has one of the most unorthodox structures in modern dramaturgy. It begins with a wild fantasy scene in which several women who were remote historical or fictional figures gather to celebrate Marlene’s promotion, in contemporary London, to a managerial post at a London employment agency. The action then moves to the agency, then to the home of Marlene’s sister Joyce outside London. The second act returns to the agency, then ends with a scene set one year earlier at Joyce’s.

Director Patrick Towne handles the shifts with dexterity, thanks to a skilled cast of seven women, six of whom play at least two roles, often attaining such distinctive looks that they are unrecognizable from scene to scene.

Brett Paesel carefully disassembles Marlene’s superficially warm manner, and Bernadette Sullivan is an even tougher spirit as Joyce, who hasn’t the luxury of superficial warmth. Meanwhile, Colleen Kane is indelible as Angie, the troubled teenager who lives with Joyce but idolizes Marlene as her role model and real mother. Angie will never be a “top girl,” but Churchill and Kane make us care about her fate.

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* “Top Girls,” Art Share, 801 E. 4th Place, Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 7. $10. (213) 769-5674. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.