![]() ![]() It’s this powerful first scene that seems wildly out of place when the next characters are introduced. Learning Latin for a woman is a privilege, forcible sex is accepted because a woman is property, the women conclude. ![]() The way smiles are created through these circumstances defines humor – the joy found through crushing situations, that which allows us to survive unconscionable pain. Daughters in this world are as worthless as dirt, only sons are acceptable. It’s a tacit acknowledgement of the historical handcuffs of what it means to be a woman, and these figures find smiles through their own personal devastation. Their conversations are loaded with pith and merriment as the wine flows but becomes devastatingly dark as time and space march forward. This scene that kicks off at the onset is full of personality. There is another, who singlehandedly gets laughs going in the most awkward of ways, the piercing Dull Gret, played hilariously by Summer Brown. There is the feminist hero Pope Joan (a varied Rosie Hallett), the concubine turned Buddhist nun Lady Nijo (sharp Monica Lin), the fictional Patient Griselda (a dazzling Monique Hafen Adams) and 19 th century explorer Isabella Bird (strong Julia McNeal). ![]() There is a lot of bread, wine trucked in by the case and some massive historic figures, all gathered here to celebrate the new promotion of Marlene (a fabulous turn by Michelle Beck). The first scene delves deeply into a dinner party, but it’s no ordinary party. Yet with masterful directing strokes from Tamilla Woodard on the usual fantastic set design by Nina Ball, the entire production coheres with delicious sustenance, and by the end, you realize what a marvel the entire production has ultimately become. The first act, namely the second scene which is so radically different from the comically painful first, leaves for lots of head shaking through intermission. The power of the exquisite production of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls,” produced by American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, is the way it melds together a confounding act one brilliantly into act two. The humiliation he is suffering because he was passed over for a woman, surely, certainly she could understand. Please, step aside so my husband can be whole. And that urgency, inspired by societal conditioning that men have a right to the plumiest of plum jobs, causes some supreme groveling. Kidd as she blasts into the room to speak to the newly appointed boss, the supremely confident Marlene. Marlene (Michelle Beck, right) and Joyce (Nafeesa Monroe) look to find common ground in “Top Girls” at ACT San Francisco through Oct. ![]()
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