Gender, class, and politics in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls

Abstract

Theatre has always been a platform for expressing what cannot be expressed through mere words coming out of one’s mouth. From the beginning of theatre, playwrights have tried to bring out issues concerning love, betrayal, war, socio-political issues, and so on to portray the authentic and real picture of life. The age-old ability to portray life on stage, theatre has remained yet one of the strongest mediums to convey issues regarding life and society. 20th century playwrights have utilised this craft and performed magic on stage to bring issues out in public, throwing questions on their faces, opening their eyes to the matters they were trying to avoid. Caryl Churchill, one of the gems of 20th century theatre has performed her magic of portraying political issues happening all around the world on stage in order to slap necessary questions on the face of ignorant world leaders and citizens. She has been doing this for a long time and Top Girls one of her initial plays show how beautifully and cleverly she addresses the issues of state politics and sexual politics of that time. This thesis aims to explore how politics is reflected in theatre. By analysing and exploring Churchill’s Top Girls, this research seeks to show how politics is reflected in theatre.