Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/)

In 2016, I began working in a very male-dominated field. As a Millennial woman, I truly believed that this would be a non-issue. While I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that we lived in a post-racism world or that people of the LGBTQIA+ community had achieved full equality, I thought that gender discrimination and societal expectations of women had so greatly changed since our mothers’ generation that there wouldn’t need to be a fourth wave of feminism. Seeing “Top Girls” at Little Theatre of Norfolk in 2025 has me reflecting on these past 9 years of being a woman in the workforce and comparing that experience to the world portrayed in the 1982 play.

The play begins with a dream-like sequence in which the main character, Marlene (commandingly and convincingly played by Madeleine Dilley, who we also enjoyed as another working woman in “The Outsider” last season) hosts a dinner party for five historic women who hail from across the centuries to celebrate her promotion at work. The first two guests to arrive are Isabella Bird (portrayed by Amanda Harrison) and Lady Nijo (played by Jackie Adonis). Director Annabelle Dragas Xanthos does a great job of creating the atmosphere of a true dinner party where the hostess is the only common factor and thus the other guests are vying for the hostess’s attention, often talking over each other and using each comment from the other to start their own story. Often throughout the dinner, Adonis (and the other women) will share a truly heart-wrenching story and Harrison, with a perfectly straight face, will try recapture the conversation. My favorite example of this is when Pope Joan (acted by Hannah Sabo) beautifully shares the devastating story about her death and the death of her newborn child, and Isabella Bird says, “I never had any children. I was very fond of horses.”  I could not believe the aplomb with which Harrison was able to deliver such a line. Savannah Fuller’s Patient Griselda arrives only in time for dinner, but still makes a big impact on the audience and the other dinner guests. She shares her story, but continuously focuses on the importance of deferring to her husband in all things (even to the extent that she helps plan his wedding to his new wife). Lori Thurman as the waitress and Sophie Brotemarkle as Dull Gret provide levity throughout the act. Dull Gret steals all the bread from the table and infrequently grunts out comments. Brotemarkle brings the character to life when she describes her trip to Hell to fight demons. As appropriate, Harrison’s Isabella Bird gets the final word of the act.

The second and third acts re-enter Marlene’s 1982 world. We get to see her and the other “top girls” at her firm, portrayed by Tiff Hale and Jackie Adonis. These three women are certainly not girls’ girls. They seek to emulate men in the work force and look down on those who have not reached their professional status. In addition to her work life, we learn of Marlene’s family life. It is rather lacking with minimal contact with her sister (movingly played by Amanda Harrison) and her sixteen-year-old niece, Angie (the aforementioned Sophie Brotemarkle). The particulars of Marlene’s past add color to the dinner party scene and begs the question: can a woman be successful in both a professional capacity and in their personal life?

The play does not provide a concrete path forward for women to have it all. But it does seem abundantly clear that we are not going to get there by individual effort. When I exited LTN, I started thinking about all the professional women I know and how they’ve sacrificed in their work lives and their home lives. To me, they’re all “Top Girls.”