The question of how body-language and space are used in Caryl Churchill's `Top Girls' is interesting. A traditional view exists that a play is dictated by the text to the extent that the actors ought not to deviate from a pure reading. This theory emphasises authorial control and allows performers little opportunity to interpret the text for the audience. A competing view is that a play is a complete entity only when performed, aiming for a collaboration between playwright, director, performers, and audience. Churchill is often thought to take this collaborative approach to her plays, leaving a great deal of space for actors to interpret her text for their audience.

This represents a partial abdication of authorial control. It is a democratisation of theatre: a property found in feminist theories of performance whilst total authorial control over a `pure' text is considered to represent a patriarchal approach. Often...