What a stage hit is made of
WHAT GIRLS ARE MADE OF Cora Bissett sparkles in rock ‘n’ roll tale about how music industry spits stars out
TRAVERSE THEATRE IT’S THE night before rehearsals and an Oscarwinning US actor and his English theatre director are getting to know each other.
One thinks he’s appearing in a pro-Republican tearjerker, the other believes he’s directing an anti-Brexit polemic about identity politics. Then the play’s author arrives and puts them straight.
David Ireland’s comedy unpicks assumptions about theatrical types, the Irish diaspora, men’s behaviour post #metoo and what it’s possible to do with a small golden statuette.
Darrell D’Silva delivers an uncomfortably accurate picture of Hollywood arrogance while beneath Robert Jack’s merino cardigan, he’s weak and vile in equal measures. ● Until August 26. WHEN she was 17, Cora Bissett joined a band. Within months, Darlingheart went from a garage in Kirkcaldy to supporting Blur and Radiohead. Almost as quickly, it all came crashing down.
This tremendous gig-play, fronted by Cora 25-odd years on, is the story of how you put your life together after a start like that.
She narrates and sings, with Simon Donaldson on guitar, Grant O’Rourke on bass and Susan Bear on drums and various other instruments.
They switch between an astounding version of Sultan of Ping’s Where’s Me Trousers to playing Cora’s anxious parents and even younger bandmate, Cathryn, who joined Darlingheart before she had done her Highers.
Together they evoke the Bissetts’ crowded house in Glenrothes, the shuttle to London where they discover you get free wine, their dodgy manager and the mysteriously runny-nosed record executive with the Scalextric track round his office.
Cora sings like she never stopped doing it. Darlingheart’s almost-hit Smarthead gets another turn around the block. Best of all is a tremendous Patti Smithesque finale namechecking Janis Joplin, Dolly Parton, Beyonce and all the other non-sugary influences that have made her the fearless performer, director and theatremaker she is today.
Knowing she survived to make Glasgow Girls and other awardwinning shows makes the crunchy bits of What Girls Are Made Of easier to bear.
Bissett is such a compelling, warm performer that any setback, no matter how devastating at the time, would only be temporary.
Donaldson and O’Rourke nail the body language of weedy Radiohead. Bear channels the real Cathryn and drums like a tank. The sad bits are unexpected, horrible and raw but Cora is too kind to leave an audience in a black funk.
Instead, she leaves us thinking the music industry’s loss has been theatre’s gain.
Until August 26.