Review: DollyWould, Wardrobe Theatre

What do we really know about Dolly?

“She’s unique isn’t she?”

“That’s what we like about her.”

“If there’s one thing you can say about her, she’s original.”

“I mean, I know technically she’s a clone.”

“But she’s the first clone.  A unique clone.”

Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit really fucking love Dolly Parton. And so they saved up loads of money and went to her home in Tennessee, and also to her other home at the Roslin Agricultural Institute near Edinburgh. They took videos. They got Dolly tattoos. They came back here with a show that is a technical masterpiece.

One moment they’re doing a baaaa’d cover of Islands in the Stream, the next a pitch-perfect harmony of You’re the Only One. Transitions are sharp and – despite the thematic preoccupation with “the wobbliness and wandomness of life” – everything about this show is tight.

It is this discipline, likely honed during a well-received run at the Edinburgh Fringe, that makes this structurally fragmented piece so consistently entertaining. Within the first two minutes, after a seemingly iffy opening riff was rewound and done again much more hilariously at fast-forward speed, I felt like I completely trusted the performers to be in control.

Any chaos landed right on the beat for maximum comic effect. Fragments cohere into a complex story that nevertheless makes perfect sense, as snippets from this interview, that song, are juxtaposed first with one image and then return later sliding into an entirely different context. The effect is like a comedic callback, first prompting ahs of recognition and then in a mad way drawing out connections between (for example) ambition, immortality, performative reproduction, death and decay, and a Tennessee tattoo parlour.

The tone of 90% of the show is joyful exuberance. As Mothersole and Biscuit say, “this is our mainstream crossover hit!” However, this dominant tone lends power to one of the most moving sections where, through an exhausting montage of interview clips obsessing over Dolly’s body, we effectively hear the voice of the male gaze. As the audio plays, the performer’s bodies droop, and we feel the joy and colour drain from the room. I feel a sense of shame and anger creep over me as I think about all the received opinions I have of Dolly Parton, and how that leering, conservative voice gets inside us all and polices the boundaries of what’s acceptable to do with our bodies.

It is in this context that Dolly re-emerges as a defiant pioneer and queer icon, navigating the moral requirements of the highly conservative country music industry seemingly with the help of some ask me-no-questions fictions. Notably, her elusive husband Carl, who stays home, and her friend Judy, who always tours with her. As presented by Mothersole and Biscuit, we get the impression that these charades are an accommodation where Dolly is very much having one over on the type of people who can choose to believe the veneer if that makes things easier for them.

After all, why does it make sense to direct our sadness primarily towards a woman that is living such a gregarious and outsize life, rather than back at ourselves, every moment we allow ourselves to fit so easily into the box that heteronormativity makes for us? As Dolly says: “I’ve got better things to do than sit around in my room thinking ‘what’s Carl doing tonight?’”

This is a wonderful show. I learnt a lot about Dolly Parton, and also about genetics, and also some technical aspects about how our bodies biodegrade after death that I hadn’t fully appreciated before. Technical execution was also superb with, light and sound operator Jen Smethurst bringing in drops like a DJ. Top marks.

DollyWould is at the Wardrobe Theatre until Sat, April 21. For more info and to book tickets, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/dollywould

Read more: Preview: DollyWould