The Grotesque Burlesque Revue, conceived and devised by Dragon Ladies is a corker of a production. An original retelling of the Bluebeard fable, it is a successful collaboration between its creators and a performance coup for its choreographer, writer and performer Marisa Carr.
Dolly Blue, the comical whore, is an extraordinary character direct from a vaudeville show, a naughty Victorian postcard and Carr's vivid imagination. With a gasping red raw mouth for a vagina and over-pumped mammaries which defy gravity, she is saucy, sassy and very appealing. Carr's storytelling talents blaze here as Dolly Blue takes us through the events which lead to her demise. Female sexuality is the life-force of the piece. With Dolly Blue, sex is fun. Reincarnated as The Avenging Angry Monster Lady it is a weapon. Her groin is the focal point as she gyrates and masturbates in an erotic dance of seduction and murderous revenge. She is the third and final rebirth: the survivor, the night-stalking whore searching the earth for retribution. 'She' wears the skins of her male victims. 'She' finds sex in shadows.
While there is still tightening up to be done (character transformations on stage are tricky but the change from Dolly Blue to The Destructress was clumsy and lessened the climactic effect of this character's arrival), all elements of this production combine to lift The Grotesque Burlesque Revue above and beyond an average night in the theatre. Dragon Ladies deserve to be ‘out there' with bigger audiences and venues at their disposal. Fantastic stuff.