Allusions, Allegories and Downright Rip-Offs

What Are They Sitting On?

So, we finished blocking the first scene of Top Girls tonight. It's long and complicated and filled with tales of both triumph and woe.

And since Churchill is so specific about the seating arrangements in the scene, I couldn't help but take advantage of it and use an iconic image everyone knows towards the end of it. It's not the first time I've done such a thing. I put the Sistine Chapel into The Most Fabulous Story... and hope to find a place to use this image in the scene that follows the dinner in Act I. In fact, I may very well put an iconic image in every scene of the show...

Top Girls is a play so filled with social commentary, I'm sure it won't be difficult to find plenty of places to add such images. The trick, of course, is finding the right image for the right scene. And since one of Churchill's characters is right out of an iconic image, I can't imagine she'd be very upset by the idea.

I'm not afraid to admit that Top Girls is probably the hardest thing I've ever attempted as a director - it's loaded with layer-upon-layer of psychology; politics; feminism; mythology; symbolism and social commentary, all of which need to be explored in order to create a cohesive piece out of a play that asks a million and five questions without answering a single one of them. 

Still, I'm confident that my most excellent cast is up to the task. They certainly aren't afraid to take the journey (and the risks that go along with it) with me, and that's what every director hopes for when he or she casts a show. I just have to convince myself that I'm up to it, as well.

More, anon.

Prospero

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