Top Girl by Caryl Churchill

Top Girl is a three-act play written by Carly Churchill during the '80s.

In the first act there is a dinner party celebrating Marlene's job promotion to managing director. However the guests were fictitious females from the past, likely famous or notorious during their times, having accomplished something unconventional.  They include Isabella Bird from the 19th century who had travelled extensively, Lady Nijo from the 13th century who was an Emperor's courtesan and later a Buddhist nun, Dull Gret, the subject of the Brueghel painting, Dulle Griet, in which a woman in an apron and armour led a crowd of women charging through hell, Pope Joan, who disguised as a man and was briefly a Pope, and Patient Griselda, the obedient wife whose story is told by Chaucer in 'The Clerk's Tale' of The Canterbury Tales. Only Marlene is a person from the present time. There was nothing in the text explaining whether the other figures were ghosts or were risen from the dead. A silent waiter served them food. 

The women recounted their experience. They talked usually about their husbands and families, but Marlene was silent about hers. The women's lives were generally centered on their husbands or lovers. As we moved into the second act, we saw the sharp contrast between how women today had a job or career while women in the past did not.

In the second act, first scene, female job-seekers visited the employment agency run by Marlene in London. Through the interviews conducted by Win and Nell with the job-seekers, we saw the optimistic aspirations of the applicants for their careers. In the second scene of the second act, twelve-year-old Kitty and sixteen-year-old Angie were having their girl talk in Angie's home. Angie's mother, Joyce, forbade her to go to the movie with Kitty until she had cleaned up her room. Angie refused, and got dressed up for the movie. Angie had shared with Kitty that she might visit her aunt Marlene in London.  In Act Two, Scene Three, Angie showed up at Marlene's agency unannounced, and asked to spend the night with Marlene. She admitted to Marlene that Joyce was unaware that she had come to London.

In Act Three, the scene moved to Joyce's home. The time was a year before Scene Two. Marlene visited Joyce after an absence of six years. There were tension between them as they defended their choice of lives. Joyce took up a few cleaning jobs to support the family. Marlene essentially believed that one should work hard, fought every opportunity, and get on with moving ahead. Joyce however explained that options were unavailable to her, and remarked that Marlene could not have known how others lived their lives when Marlene did not come home regularly to visit her parents, her sister and her niece. Marlene felt that she was unwelcome when she had made the effort to come by. They also disagreed on what and how the prevailing social classes and middle classes should do in their social and economic pursuits. We realised that Angie was really Marlene's child, brought up by Joyce when Marlene left home to pursue her dreams.

Top Girls could stand without the first act with the dinner party.  This act could emphasize that Marlene, in her pursuit of her career, did not even have a close circle of friends in her life. rom the third act, we see that Marlene gave up her daughter and left her with Joyce as Joyce had offered to look after Angie. Marlene was not fighting to have Angie back in her life.  Marlene and Joyce are sharp contrast in that the former was willing to pay the price with estrangement from her family to pursue her freedom, while the latter sacrificed her freedom to care for her aged parents and young child. The juxtaposition of females' way of lives in modern societies with past lives in more patriarchal societies brings out that one had to make a choice of what one wants, and be ready to compromise and forfeit other important things for that one thing to get to the top.  But with so much desires, no one could feel fulfillment even after reaching the top.

The play text comes with a page that explains the notation used for the point of interruption, and the point of continuation. I appreciate the care given in planning how the dialogue and lines intercut. At the dinner party with a group of women busy talking, the continuation indicator helps to reduce confusion on who is 'following' or responding to who.

Plain Girl by Arthur Miller

Plain Girl is a novella written by Arthur Miller and published in the 90s. More known for his plays, this is my first reading of Miller's fiction in prose.

Janice Sessions is the protagonist of Plain Girl. She did not consider herself beautiful. She wrote in her notebook, "It isn't that I feel positively unattractive - I know better. But that somehow I am being kept from anything miraculous happening to me, ever."  She had some affection for her father, yet she had left his ashes at a bar. She was upset by the loss for only a short time, it seemed.

Janice felt that her first husband, Sam, had never really pursued her. "Sam was beneath her in some indefinite class sense, but that was part of his attraction in the thirties when to have been born to money was shameful, a guarantee of futility". Sam had his political views, is a Marxist, and an anti-Facist, believing that the Soviets would do the right thing. He left their home in New York to fight in the war.  Janice took courses with Professor Oscar Kalkofsky, who pointed out to her, "I think what you are saying is you don't feel you have ever made a choice in life. I know it because I see how much expectation there is in you." When Sam returned from the war, Janice felt that "their spirits had parted", and decided to leave him. When her brother Herman asked her what she wanted out of life, her response was," A good time."

Janice met a a blind musician Charles Buckman. Janice felt that Charles accepted her for what she was. He consoled Janice, "People have to believe in goodness. They're disappointed most of the time but in some part of his beliefs every person is naive. Even the most cynical. And memories of one's naivety are always painful. But so what? Would you rather have had no beliefs at all?"  They were happily married for fifteen years until Charles died in his sleep. "He had turned her inside out so that she looked out at the world instead of holding her breath for the world to look at her and disapprove."

The prose was beautifully written, conveying the ambivalent feelings the characters had of the political and social situation of the time, which is the period of the World Wars when Hitler, Stalin and Roosevelt were calling the shots.  "People her age, early twenties then, wanted to signify by doing good, attended emergency meetings a couple of times a week in downtown lofts or sympathizers' West End Avenue living rooms to raise money for organising the new National Maritime Union or ambulances for the Spanish Republicans, and they were moved to genuine outrage at Fascism." All that would be replaced by a newer generation and other ideologies. When Janice, in her sixties, watched the demolition of Hotel Crosby where she first met Charles, she "wondered at her fortune at having lived into beauty."

Amos Oz's Scenes from Village Life

Scenes from Village Life contains eight short stories of villagers living in Tel Ilan in the Manasseh Hills. This is the second book from Amos Oz which I have read.

In the story "Waiting", the village is thus described in the opening paragraph, "Tel Ilan, a pioneer village, already a century old, was surrounded by fields and orchards. Vineyards sprawled down the east-facing slopes. Almond trees lined the approach road. Tiled roofs bathed in the thick greenery of ancient trees, Many of the inhabitants still farmed, with the help of foreign labourers who lived in huts in the farmyards. But some had leased out their land and made a living by letting rooms, by running art galleries or fashion boutiques, or by working outside the village. Two gourmet restaurants had opened in the middle of the village, and there was also the winery and a shop selling tropical fish. One local entrepreneur had started manufacturing reproduction antique furniture. At weekends, of course, the village filled with visitors who came to eat or hunt for a bargain. But every Friday afternoon its streets emptied as the residents rested behind closed shutters." The story continued with how Benny Avni, the village mayor,  went searching for his wife, Nava, after receiving a note from Nava. The note said, "Don't worry about me." It was delivered by Adel, who saw Nava sitting on a bench near the Memorial Garden. By the end of the day, Nava did not come home, and Benny had no conclusion on what, if anyhting, had happened to her.

The first story is "Heirs". Arieh Zelnik had a visitor, Wolff Maftsir the lawyer. Maftsir claimed to be a relation, knew the family history of Zelnik, and proposed that both of them realise the value of the property that Zelnik stayed with his sick and deaf mother by appointing themselves as her guardian and sending her to a home. 

In the second story, "Relations", Gili Steiner, a family doctor at Tel Ilan, waited in vain for her nephew, Gideon Gat, at the bus stop where the bus from Tel Aviv arrived. Gideon's mother had sent him to convalesce for a few days with Steiner in the country. Steiner anxiously asked the passengers and the bus driver if they had seen her nephew, but no one had paid any attention to the few passengers that fit her nephew's description. Steiner was going home when she detoured to check again with Mirkin, the bus driver, to ensure that no passenger had dozed off and was locked up in his bus.  Mirkin let her have an overcoat which might be Gideon's and was left in the bus. She went home, called Gideon's and her sister's phone, and got no answer. She threw away the food she had prepared for Gideon, waiting with disappointment, and recalling more of the time that her nephew had spent with her at her home. 

In "Digging", the third story, Rachel Franco, a widow, looked after her eighty-six-year-old father Pesach Kedem. Kedem was bitter about life and full of complaints and criticisms for everyone. He was also untidy in appearance and sloppy in his habits.  He bore a grudge against Rachel who looked after him irreproachably every day, and he mixed her up with his wife Abigail, or his mother Hinde, both dead. He was suspicious of Micky the vet who visited occasionally. He was also prejudiced against the Arab student, Adel, who stayed in a shed which was part of the property Pesach and Rachel lived in, and who offered labour around the house in exchange for the free lodgings.  Pesach insisted that he heard digging under the ground at 2am. Rachel usually slept heavily, but she finally heard the digging at the end of the story.

In "Lost", an estate agent visited The Ruin, which used to belong to the late Eldad Rubin, who was a pride of the villagers for being a famous writer. Rubin's mother and wife had refused to sell the property, but Batya Rubin, Eldad's wife, had called the estate agent.  The estate agent visited The Ruin without making an appointment. Yardena Rubin opened the door and invited him in. Her mother and grandmother had gone to Jerusalem. She showed him around the enormous property, and at the end, left him in the cellar. 

In "Strangers", a seventeen-year-old young man, Kobi Ezra,  was in love with Ada Dvash, a woman in her thirties and deserted by her husband. She worked at the post office during the day and in the library from 7pm to 9pm. He waited for her outside the post office and walked with her to the library. At the library, he revealed his feelings for her, and she turned him down very gently. He left the library, certain that both of them would not want to speak to each other again and would avoid each other.
     
In "Singing", some of the residents, including the protagonists in the previous stories, gathered to sing at the Levin's home. Dalia and Avraham Levin had a son who had hidden himself beneath his parents' bed and shot himself in his head. One of the guests wandered around the Levin's home, and entered the bedroom where the tragedy had happened. 

The location of "In a faraway place at another time", the last story in the collection, is unknown. The settings is a swampy area in which the population was in decline, people interbred, were crippled and suffered from deformities and mental deficiency. The protagonist was sent there twenty or twenty-five years ago by the authorities, the Office for Underdeveloped Regions. He administered drugs and antiseptics, he disinfected the swamp, he distributed chlorine and DDT. He was the pharmacist, teacher, nurse, arbitrator. He waited in vain for his replacement to arrive.  His appeals to the governor went unheeded. One day, on top of the hill far away, the villagers saw a healthy and handsome strange man. He generated much curiosity, excitement, and then suspicion. This man disappeared shortly, and the story ended. I wonder if the strange man was some sort of Messiah.

Memorial Garden was mentioned in a few stories. Some of the characters reappeared or were mentioned in more than one stories. All the stories speak of loneliness or estrangement. Even if the character has someone to keep him or her company, the companion really wished to be elsewhere. The memories of the past and the routines of everyday life keep them going and bearing with the question of whether to be resigned with their lives.
 

Review of "Loving Vincent"

Vincent van Gogh aroses feelings of intrigue, loss, uneasiness, regret, and tragedy. He started to paint in his late twenties. He was prolific in producing 900 works in 8 years before his death at age 37.   

The first feature film that is painted, Loving Vincent , could be described as an adaptation of Vincent van Gogh's letters, his key paintings, and his artistic style. Life actors rehearsed and performed the scene, which is recorded and combined with various CGI and animation effects, and 80 painters who could reproduce van Gogh's style, re-appropriate some of his portraits and landscape works and produced more than 60,000 paintings for the film which involved more than 100 animators. 

Loving Vincent is structured like a detective story featuring Armand Roulin, a young man from Arles delivering an unopened letter that van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, shortly before his death. In the process, he discovers more and more about the artist, and begins to question if van Gogh was really insane and killed himself, and if he might have wanted to live after all.
  
It was extraordinary of Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman to pursue this project of the first oil-painted feature film on Vincent van Gogh.  Indeed, it would have been a different film if the film is made up of only computer-generated animations instead of artists' paintings. Although there is a jerkiness as one painting transitions to the next, I soon got used to it.  The jerkiness comes perhaps from the combination of different positions and density of swirls and dots, shades of colours, giving rise to a stronger sense of motion of the character, light and colour in each transition. The vivid play of colours does not portray cheerfulness but retain the melancholy. The frames of moving pictures feel like extensions of Vincent van Gogh's work, even though Van Gogh was not engaged in animation and film. 

The film provokes in me questions on what cause mental instability and suicidal inclinations, and how we might care for someone so they could move away from the brink of insanity.   Is society too quick and too eager to label a social outcast as mad?