Act I of Top Girls takes place in a hip London restaurant where Marlene is gathering five other women to celebrate her promotion to managing director of Top Girls, the employment agency where she works. This scene is surreal, because Marlene's 5 dinner guests are female figures from different historical eras: Isabella Bird; a 19th century writer and traveller, Lady Nijo; a 13th century courtesan and later, Buddhist nun, Dull Gret; the subject of a Brueghel painting who led an army of women into hell to fight the devils, Pope Joan; a 9th century woman who disguised herself as a man and became Pope, and Patient Griselda; the obedient wife from The Clerk's Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. These women are bound together by their struggles against patriarchy and oppression - and Marlene relates to each of them differently.

Act 2 is set at the Top Girls employment agency. Marlene is interviewing a woman named Jeanine who wants a new job because there are no prospects for advancement at her current position. Through her questions, Marlene reveals that she looks down on Jeanine for her desire to get married young, have children, and her uncertainty about her professional future. Marlene only offers Jeanine two openings, one at a company that makes knitwear and the other lampshades - neither of which fulfill Jeanine's request for opportunities and travel. Regardless, Marlene tells Jeanine to be confident and present herself well, because her performance reflects on Marlene and the agency.