Dolly At Omnibus Theatre
Dolly, presented by Play GC Theatre Company, and written and developed by Charlotte Ashton through the Royal Court Writer’s Group, opened at The Omnibus Theatre on October 20th.
Have you ever been to a standup comedy show? Yes, you, I am asking you. Here’s the mic.
I find that, generally, stand up comedy implicates the viewer in a unique way, as it is perhaps ‘convention’ for a comedian to use the audience as an active participant in their show. Stand up comedy often begins with a bit of “crowd work.” This is how Dolly begins, and although the direct interaction is not constant throughout the show, I found myself in that state of alert engagement for the 75 minutes it ran, prepared to answer anything that Dolly, played brilliantly by Jessica Clark, might ask of me.
Play GC advertises Dolly as follows: “Stand-up comic Dolly has never thought much about the criminal justice system. She's busy writing jokes and clearing plates. But then one night she is attacked and places her trust in the system to catch the man who did it. But it's a tough crowd and no one listens. Seems the system doesn’t think much about her either.”
The play’s subject matter is devastating, and poignantly backed up by the research woven throughout the script and craftily apparent via technical work presented on stage. Clark’s arresting portrayal of Dolly, and all of the other characters that emerge via her athletic embodiment of Ashton’s script, will also move you in surprising ways.
When I left the theatre, I immediately looked into Ashton’s writing process. I wanted to know how she chose to tell this story through the lens of stand-up comedy. In an interview published on Substack by Omnibus Theatre, “From a WhatsApp message to the Omnibus Stage: The Making of Dolly,” Ashton describes a sort of ‘aha’ moment:
“Suddenly” she writes,
“I had a character who could tackle the subject through comedy, allowing me to go to places that straight drama might not. Dolly could expose the absurdity of institutional responses to sexual violence, challenge what we consider normal and, occasionally, make an audience laugh at something before they had time to consider why they were laughing.”
Dolly is a play about someone trying to survive within, and navigate a broken system. Clark, as Dolly, is alone on stage with a captive audience and control over her voice - literally - through a microphone. This mic connects her to the viewers of and participants in her storytelling, and to a chorus of others that share in a state of being: womanhood.
Upon learning more about Ashton’s process working with the Royal Court Writer’s Group, her collaborators at PlayGC, director Anthony Biggs, Jessica Clark, and all of the other artists involved in this production, I think this play is a testament to the work that can emerge from collaboration amongst those
who believe in the importance of supporting new writing and challenging stories. “Dolly” not only moved me, but made me question the binaries between some of these forms of art and entertainment.
While there are dramatized points of departure, the narrative arc of Dolly follows an hour-long comedy set. Isn’t all stand-up a one-person show? A form of story telling? Testimony?
The justice system tasked with listening to Dolly’s story may fail, but in posing this question, “what happens to women in the absence of justice,” the audience gains the opportunity to consider what we can do to work against the societal, systemic issues set forth by this play. And they can listen. And they can laugh, even if a second later they wish they hadn’t. They can bear witness.
DOLLY is a timely piece of theatre brought to life through an outstanding performance and language, and facts that are haunting, insightful, and at times, hilarious.
Dolly closes on November 7th. I urge you to see it!
Edited by Aminata Ndiaye, Theater Editor.
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