Sydney Theatre Company season opener

Right: Paul Arundell and Helen Thomson. Photo: Rene Vaile.

Sydney Theatre Company opens its 2018 season with the Caryl Churchill classic Top Girls, directed by STC Resident Director Imara Savage.

Written in London in 1982, the year the phrase ‘having it all’ was coined, Top Girls explores the balance of career and motherhood, and asks big questions around power, ambition, family and responsibility – questions we’re still asking today.

Marlene is unstoppable. She’s been promoted to the top job at a London employment agency and it’s time to celebrate. Her dinner party with famous female figures from throughout history is one of playwright Caryl Churchill’s wittiest and best-known scenes – as heavyweight intellectual ideas are thrown around over dinner and seven bottles of Frascati.

However, Marlene’s success is soon undermined by the compromises she’s made and the past she’s left behind. Privilege comes at a cost – but she might not be the one who picks up the tab.

According to Helen Thomson, who plays Marlene, the issues raised in Top Girls are still relevant. “What’s so interesting is the next wave of women in today’s workforce are realising the pay gap is still there and the glass ceiling still exists. So women are seeing that we have to work together to help each other – through movements like Lean In and #MeToo. It’s all along the same trajectory and part of the ongoing discussion of the women’s movement,” Thomson says.

Thomson will be joined by an all-female cast – Paula Arundell (The Bleeding Tree), Kate Box (ABC’s Rake), Michelle Lim Davidson (ABC’s Utopia), Claire Lovering (Dinner), Heather Mitchell (Cloud Nine) and Contessa Treffone (All My Sons) – to bring this high-octane production to the spectacular Sydney Opera House stage.

12 Feb to 24 Mar 2018. Opening Night: Friday 16th February at 8pm. Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre. Bookings: 02 9250 1777

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