Lucy Briers on Playing the Pope in the Hit London Revival of Top Girls

Lucy Briers comes by her theatrical leanings naturally as the daughter of actress Ann Davies and the veteran English comic actor Richard Briers (a 1998 Tony nominee for his Broadway performance in The Chairs). But Briers fille has more than made her own mark on the profession, appearing off-Broadway in 2008 in the solo play Some Kind of Bliss and, back home, as one of the excellent all-female ensemble in the current London revival of Caryl Churchill’s 1982 modern classic Top Girls. Briers recently chatted with Broadway.com about the show, which runs at the Trafalgar Studios 1 through October 29.

Top Girls arose directly from the Thatcher-era climate in which it was written. Do you think it resonates three decades on?
I’m afraid that it feels rather sadly like a play for today; the entire cast agrees on that one! We may have moved on a little as far as women in the workplace are concerned, but it’s still very, very hard [for women] to get to the top of a business. What I’m hoping has changed is that people have learned the legacy of what [former UK Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher has meant: If you live your life entirely about the individual, you risk forgetting the importance of the community and society.

What’s amazing is how funny the play can be, despite its trenchant political and social import.
Some of it is huge fun! Yes, it’s got a hard message and can be quite bleak at times, but the play is also very witty. We get a lot of laughs, especially in act one where you can really feel the audience engaging with the spirit of adventure of the piece.

Top Girls has an extraordinary first act: a dinner party bringing together women from across cultures and centuries, all of whom had to struggle in different ways to make it in a man’s world. And you get to play a female pope [Joan, from the 9th century]!
Yes, and somebody who had such a clear objective in her life that she actually sacrificed her identity in order to achieve what she wanted by passing as a man; that was the only way she could devote her life to learning and philosophy. Again, you think of Thatcher, who may have been our first woman Prime Minister but almost had to act as a man in order to gain that position—though you could argue that she had to act that way because of the time she lived in.

Tell us about your first-act costume as Pope Joan.
We wanted something with status—a look of luxury—but also something that is ultimately very simple, so I wear a floor-length white nightshirt as well as a [clerical] cope and a linen skull cap that covers my hair. At first, I was presented with shoes that were very feminine, almost like ballet pumps, but I said that I wanted shoes that looked as if they were put together by a 9th-century cobbler, which is what I got.

After the first intermission, you play a contemporary career woman, Louise.
She’s someone who describes herself as “passing as a man at work,” so there’s that, as well. But I think of the two women as very different. Louise, in a way, is a victim of her generation: Yes, she became a manager in 1963, so you think, “My god, that’s pioneering,” but she just stayed there. It’s as if, as [director] Max [Stafford-Clark] put it, she’s there purely to nurture the men. It’s fascinating in this play, all the layers and layers.

This play has become so iconic a text: Did you know it before?
I studied it at university and also saw Thea Sharrock’s production about 10 years ago which I thoroughly enjoyed. But that was in a huge theater, whereas ours is more intimate, and I think you very much gain from being nearer to the action.

You also did Churchill’s Cloud Nine at Sheffield in 2004.
That was amazing. I got to play Edward, the nine-year-old boy, and his own mother, Betty, and found myself swapping genders with [2008 Tony nominee] Daniel Evans. I thought, I’ve just got to act like Daniel Evans, and I’ll be all right [laughs]. The thing with Caryl’s work is not to be too reverent with it; people sometimes think, “Oh my God, it’s all so frightfully serious,” but there’s also a huge amount of humor and wit. There are photos of us in rehearsal with Top Girls laughing our heads off.

In her prime, Churchill was heralded as one of the great feminist writers but we tend not to hear that word so much anymore.
Unfortunately, feminism has almost become a dirty word for the generation below me. I’m 44, and there are women in their 20s who potentially shy away from that term, which is a great shame. Possibly it’s that we have to re-define feminism in terms of what the first wave of feminism achieved and how we can build on that.

Was it inevitable given your background that you would become an actor?
I have to say that my parents very seriously used to say to me, “Please don’t do it,” and my father tested my intention hugely! He would come to see me in shows at the National Youth Theatre and go, “Yeah, you were OK,” and I thought, OK, I’m going to wait for the day when I come off stage and he goes, “You were great!” It was when I got into the Bristol Old Vic theater school to study drama that he gave me my blessing and I thought, “Onward we go.” [Laughs.] He and my mother have been unbelievably supportive since.

Both you and your dad have had lovely experiences of the New York theater—your father earning a Tony nomination in 1998, you gathering raves for a solo play off-Broadway a decade later.
Dad had a ball doing The Chairs; he just loved it! That was also my first trip to New York, and I remember getting off the plane and going, “I’m in love.” And I’d never even set foot there before! When I later appeared at 59E59 Theatres, it was like a dream come true. And thank god I had good reviews and that the show sold. I would have hated to do that with bad reviews; that would have been grim [laughs]. Now I’m a complete America-o-phile. New York is my favorite city in the world, and I’m a Londoner born and bred.

What’s next for you after Top Girls?
A holiday! I’m very lucky in that I also do a lot of voice-overs, so it’s nice to have that other string to my bow beyond the acting work. But I have to say that I have had an extremely happy time on this and I am so pleased that the play seems to live on.