Fly high with the dollies
CATHY and the Trolley Dollies may be a drag-show, but the show, as pointed out by one of the dollies, is far from a drag. In the convivial cosiness of its well-appointed venue, this theatre-supper experience is designed to keep an audience in high good humour throughout the evening, attention held by the rude raunchiness of a trio of air-hostesses killing time before take-off.
The females in question trade insults, wax personal about passengers (mostly the male of that species), and reminisce about unsatisfactory past relationships or marriages or both; none of them is in the first bloom of youth, and experience has left them a tad jaded, not to mention cynical. Their grumpiness is not mitigated by their demotion to service in Domestic Economy after an indiscretion in New York… Double-entendre abounds, not always original but highly amusing.
This makes for a robust and mirthful script (the show is definitely not for prudes), and it is enlivened by occasional bursts of song as the dollies indulge in solo or ensemble rendition of familiar melodies.
The style is jazzy, the lyrics modified to suit their circumstances – such as the Dolly Parton hit Nine to Five, the words of which are altered to accommodate the safety instructions that preface every flight, and which no one really heeds. The language is saucy, to say the least.
All three performers are proficient vocalists, each bringing a distinctive style to their delivery:
Holly (Dudgeon) is strident in keeping with her abrasive nature (her middle finger is displayed at regular intervals, notably in response to passengers’ requests); Molly (Jansen) brings tongue-in-cheek humour to her interminable solo ballad sung in Afrikaans, and Cathy (Van Rhyn) has a startling range of register that sweeps from husky honey to deep-throated baritone, to brilliant effect.
Apart from the singing, each identically uniformed hostess is differentiated by a coiffured haystack of hair tamed by a several cans of aerosol: black (Holly), red (Molly) and blonde (Cathy). Eddie du Plooy’s neatly devised set, lit by Paul Abrams, evokes the impersonal, compact interior of an aircraft – the perfect context for a show of this intimacy. There are a few scary incursions into the audience by the dollies, who tower above the diners, but no one is dragged (pun intended) into the action against his or her will.
A strength of this revue is the powerful teamwork generated by the cast, a teamwork that in no way diminishes the impact of individual personalities and performances – not an easy balance to achieve, but Van Rhyn, Dudgeon and Jansen pull it off with panache under Vanrenen’s direction.
Their cohesion is reflected in the well-rehearsed ensemble of their dancing, snappily choreographed by Sven-eric (sic) Muller.
A surprise comes with the radical costume-change of the glamorous finale after the allclear has been given for take-off.
No, this drag-show is no drag.