Top Girls, Huntington Theatre Company, Boston, through May 20. 617-266-0800, 617-933-8600 or bostontheatrescene.com

Caryl Churchill often displays a signature knack for tightly written observation.

Think of such provocative and intriguing efforts as this major British playwright's "Far Away"(2000) and "A Number"(2002). By contrast-at just over two and one half hours long, Churchill's 1982 part fantasy, part reality-driven "Top Girls" comes across as more of an overlong major work than a taut gem.

Clearly the imaginative and singular first act dinner party held by promotion-celebrating Marlene-in its own way a kind of "Woman and Superwomen"-and the play's examination of the sacrifices women have made to succeed hit a nerve during the United Kingdom's Margaret Thatcher years.

That the play's opening exuberance still works today-as demonstrated in Huntington Theatre Company's top ensemble current revival, though the often conventional office and home front post-intermission dialogue could do with the updating an employment agency head expects from a resume.

Even so, call the dinner party offering a Michelin Star-worthy opener. Instead of contemporary business women, Marlene has invited a wide-ranging mix of real. Legendary and mythical achievers and spouses of male successes exchange personal histories and experiences in often overlapping comments.

As each guest arrives and joins the lively banter, the insights and insinuations escalate in both tone and expression. Victorian adventurer Isabella Bird details travel to such very different destinations as America and Morocco. Possibly mythical mid-ninth century Pope Joan(854-856) disguises herself as a man complete with ornate white and gold robe and matching miter.

Thirteenth century Japanese concubine Lady Nijo has gained her position by marriage. Patient Griselda, known from the work of Italian Renaissance literary masters Boccaccio and Petrarch hails from the Clerk's Tale in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Adding rough language and volatile personality to the guests is Dull Gret, a helmet and armor clad fighter brandishing raunchy language as well as sword and known to lead peasants into Hell to take on devils.

This feast of wit and wisdom proves so vivid that much of what follows pales by comparison. What follows in some ways amounts to a kind of feminist variation on the famed Frost poem "The Road Not Taken."

Act II, scene two finds Marlene being approached at the employment agency she now manages by her sister Joyce's challenged 16 year old Angie, who wishes to stay with her. Here Churchill has Marlene and the employees in her office seem to act more like Top Men than self-empowered Top Women. Earlier in the first scene at Joyce's backyard, Angie tells her 12 year old friend Kit that she hates her mother.

Churchill proceeds to take the play back a year to Joyce's kitchen for revealing information-particularly a big secret-that smartly helps confirms the playwright's view that no women can 'have it all.' Will women find full self-validation and real empowerment? Men and women know that that achievement is sadly still only partially realized.

Churchill's still timely play may be overlong, but talented returning guest director Liesl Tommy ("A Raisin in the Sun" and "Ruined") makes the first act restaurant repartee an unqualified romp and the third act kitchen moment of truth very moving. Paula Plum has the right spunk as Isabella and Vanessa Kai affecting candor as Lady Nijo.

Carmen M. Herlihy makes the most of Dull Gret's coarseness, while Ella Monte-Brown has the right vulnerability as Patient Griselda. Sophia Ramos catches Pope Joan's mischievousness as well as her amusing hauteur. Herlihy finds all of Angie's anger and attitude, and Kiara Pichardo has Kit's playfulness. Ramos is heartbreakingly world weary as Joyce. Carmen Zilles, the only cast member who does not play multiple roles, is properly commanding as contemporary Top Girl Marlene who tellingly copes with the formidable ups and downs of her life. Linda Cho's costumes capture both the humor and the distinctive identities of Churchill's women.

Churchill intends to take women out of middle management to their own plain of empowerment. Director Tommy brings that kind of top management to "Top Girls."