In the Caryl Churchill play Top Girls, five historical and fictional ladies get together for dinner. “If you had the opportunity to invite women out of history, whom would you ask?” asks Phil Robb, who directs a production in Canton this weekend. “These are women who were feminists of their time.” Breaking bread are Lady Nijo, a Buddhist nun from 14th-century Japan; Flemish peasant Dull Gret, who led an army of women to hell in a 16th-century painting; Patient Griselda, a character in The Canterbury Tales; 19th-century British adventurer Isabella Bird; and Pope Joan, a cross-dressing pontiff from the ninth century. “It’s about what women have to do to get ahead in society,” says Robb.
April 20-21, 8 p.m.; Sun., April 22, 2:30 p.m.
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