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Isabella Bird

Isabella Lucy Bird was born October 15, 1831 to Edward Bird, a clergyman, and Dora Lawson. She was an intelligent, precocious child, educated by her parents. She suffered from ill health her whole life but always pushed herself physically. Travel was prescribed repeatedly, first in 1854. She relived her travels in her writing, editing journals and letters for publication. An Englishwoman in America, her first book, was published anonymously in 1856. Her writing and lectures were not limited to travel however, but were also a tool for social commentary and education.

In 1872, she traveled to Australia, Hawaii and Colorado, returning to nurse her sister Hennie. After Hennie’s death, Isabella married John Bishop in 1881. When Bishop too became ill, they traveled only for the benefit of his health until his death in 1886.

From 1888 to 1897, she traveled extensively in the Middle East and Asia. Her manuscripts increasingly established her as a keen social and cultural observer — not just an adventuress. Her later years were more political, and she was honored amoung the first female members of the Royal Geographical Society. She made her last trip abroad to Morocco in 1900 and died in Edinburgh on October 7, 1904.

Lady Nijo

Born in 1258, Lady Nijo was reared from the age of four in the palace of the ex-Emperor GoFukakusa to become a courtesan. The Emperor and his court at Kyoto held power in Japan only in theory, since the Minamoto clan uprising at the end of the 12th century had established the shogun military government in Kamakura.

Although highly favored at court, Nijo never received the rank of official consort and she never married. She did keep many lovers, dividing her time between the emperor and Akebono and the priest Ariake among others. Her affairs were kept relatively secret, but eventually she fell out of favor with the emperor. A clash with the empress, along with her many affairs and growing lack of interest in GoFukakusa, finally forced Nijo to leave the palace at age twenty-six. Following her father’s wishes she entered Buddhist orders, and traveled Japan extensively by foot. Renouncing the world and following a religious path was not unusual, but Nijo’s travels were almost unprecedented for a woman of her rank. Lady Nijo’s Confessions is her memoir of 36 years and ends with her still on her travels.

Dull Gret

Dull Gret is the prominent female subject of the painting Dulle Griet or “Mad Meg,” (c.1562 or 1564) by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-1569). Little is known about the painting’s origin or meaning, but Bruegel was influenced by the artist Hieronymus Bosch. Bruegel’s biographer Karel van Mander mentions the painting in 1604 but makes no comment on it specifically, and Bruegel’s intended allegorical or religious meaning is uncertain. It is generally accepted that Bruegel castigated human weakness, with avarice and greed as the main targets of his criticism. In Dulle Griet, we see these weaknesses realized in Griet’s greedy female companions.

In Top Girls, Churchill’s Dull Gret refers to having suffered under Spanish rule. The Netherlands were under the rule of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. In 1556, the lands reverted to his son Philip II of Spain. The Calvinist Dutch disliked the Spanish Catholics and feared the Inquisition would be brought to the Netherlands, and personal, economic, and religious freedom would be lost. In 1567 Philip sent the Spanish Duke of Alba and 10,000 troups to bring order to the area. In 1572 the Dutch revolt began, beginning a bloody civil war that continued until 1579.

Pope Joan

The story of Pope Joan begins with ninth-century Englishman John Anglicus. He traveled to Athens to study and eventually came to lecture at the Trivium in Rome. He was appointed cardinal and then pope when Pope Leo IV died. Pope John VIII ruled for two years, until his true gender was discovered when “he” gave birth to a child during a papal procession. Pope Joan was consequently stoned to death.

The first known reference to Pope Joan occurs in the 13th century, 350 years after her death. Around this time her image also began to appear as the High Priestess card in the Tarot deck. Originally it seems the Catholic Church accepted the reality of Pope Joan. Marginal notes in a 15th-century document refer to a statue called “The Woman Pope with Her Child” that was supposedly erected near the Lateran in Rome. However, during the Reformation in the 16th century, the existence of Pope Joan was denied. At the same time, Protestant writers used the idea of a female pope as anti-Catholic propaganda. Modern scholars have been unable to resolve the historicity of Pope Joan.

Patient Griselda

The character of Patient Griselda appears in very similar stories by three major early Renaissance writers including Italian scholars/poets Francesco Petrarch (1304-74) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) and English poet and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer (1342/43-1400).

Patient Griselda’s story of love through loyalty and obedience is the same in each version with only relatively minor details differing. Boccaccio’s The Decameron is a collection of 100 stories structured around the flight of 10 young people from plague-stricken Florence who entertain themselves for a fortnight through a number of activities including each telling one story a day for 10 days. Each day’s storytelling has a theme; Patient Griselda’s story is told on the 10th day, when “the discussion turns upon those who have performed liberal or munificent deeds, whether in the cause of love or otherwise.” Petrarch was perhaps best known for his collection of poems to Laura, an idealised beloved, which were a major influence on Renaissance poetry. He retold Boccaccio’s Griselda story in Latin. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales familiarised the English with stories from other writers. It is the longest and most detailed of the tales and probably the basis for Churchill’s Griselda.

Types of Speeches

Monologue: Only one person is speaking, but also it is used in other areas ansd sentences and ways that blend/blur the definition. Usually one person talking for a decent amount of time, but because we have different types, e.g. internal, dramatic, it makes people less certain as to the definition. Soliloquy: No-one else is on stage for the speech Aside: other characters on stage, but don’t hear. Speech is spoken directly to the audience. Usually accompanied with a physical move, i.e. steps towards center of space

Notes

• Gret is an assumed personality of the character from the painting
• Recognise that plays are presented to a large audience and result in a shared reaction
  • Use audiovisual cues/dialogue

Intermission

• In between Act 1 and Act 2 or Act 2 Scene 1, Act 2 Scene 2
• As an audience, how do we feel?
• Fourth wall break
• Reminds the audience that we are watching a play
• “Anachronism”

Class

Upper

• Margaret Thatcher
• Joan???
• Griselda

Upper Middle

• Marlene
• Isabella Bird
• Mrs Kidd

Middle

Lower Middle

• Joyce

Lower Class

Top Girls Study Guide

Setting/Place

• Minimalist set design (postmodern theatre)
• Act 1 – the restaurant, a dreamscape; a depiction of Marlene’s psyche/interiority?
  • Outside space/time
• Act 2 – Joyce’s backyard (‘shelter made of junk)’;  Top Girls recruitment agency office space
  • In the present
• Act 3 – Joyce’s kitchen
  • In the past

What is

Realism?

• Realism is the viewpoint that things exist or have an existence independent of human cognition or perception
• Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a term coined to describe a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, which used a style of social realism.
  • Its protagonists usually could be described as angry young men, and it often depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in cramped rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and political controversies.
• Rejects romanticism
• “Relaxed”

Naturalism?

• Type of literary realism
• Literary naturalism emphasises observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality
• Distinct in its embrace of determinism, detachment, scientific objectivism, and social commentary
• “Strict”
• Engages with the notion of time
• Plays explore sordid subject matter previously considered taboo on the stage in any serious manner (e.g. suicide, poverty, prostitution)
• Characters are working/lower class

Going on in the first Act?

• Outside time and space
• A lot of women from the past have coffee with a woman in the present
• Used to contrast feminist values of the past with feminist values of the present???
• “she probably doesn’t have any actual friends” - mr barton

Theatre of the Absurd???

• Focuses on ideas of existentialism
• What happens with no purpose/communication
• Life is “absurd”