What's playing at the Judy? I'll tell you what's playing at the Judy guise and dolls.
Blonde locks, cat eyes and piercing pink, platformed princesses. Babushka's dolls were dressed to the nines and statuesque in the Dreamhouse. Seated around candle-lit tables under a fairy lantern chandelier, high heels, baby bottles and dolls in sexually provocative scenarios adorned the theatre.
With the twist of a key the music box opened and these Polly Pockets with pipes pampered the patrons with tune of the turmoil it takes to be a woman in a stereotyping society. Nursing dolls, breaking dolls and becoming dolls, the cute-but-creepy caricatured cabaret cast delved into which the roles women are typecast – as politically incorrect as can be. Glittered with opera, '80s pop, nursery rhymes and rock & roll, this smooth sail through Barbie's world is wrapped in plastic, and it's fantastic.
Asked to remember our favourite childhood doll the audience shared memories of their first best friend; from Cabbage Patch Kids to Barbies, Polly Pockets and Bratz dolls, there wasn't a woman who couldn't identify her first plastic pal. With an immediate personal connection, the quirky, cheeky and unapologetic performers and co-creators Alicia Cush, Bethan Ellsmore and Judy Hainsworth began. Basing their roles on heightened versions of themselves, the dolls characteristics were brought to life in song, costume and strange, spirited stories.Judy Doll is the princess of the pack, having never left her box this porcelain, preppy, pink, pristine perfectionist is the boss of the Dreamhouse. She survived the transition from a dutiful family of money to being picked out of a St Vinnies bin and sold on Ebay. But she doesn't have it all, Judy Doll is a sexually frustrated single on the look-out for Mr Dreamy. And as the fairytale goes, she found him by the end of the night in (the well-endowed) Roger, a blowup sex doll thrown from the back of the theatre onto the stage.
Have-It-All Alicia is the stupendously successful mother-of-two with a husband, a house and a corporate career. With a tight tummy, lavish legs, and tantalising tan, she practises yoga, eats plenty of kale, cooks for the family, volunteers for the P&C, works harder than all her colleagues and always picks the kids up on time. But at what cost? The constant battle to hold onto her identity is challenging. Finding the balance in the chaos is also what she enjoys, it's all or nothing for this high-flyer.
Party Doll Bethan is the crazy cat of the clan, she's a rule-breaker, a risk-taker and a party-maker. With her piercing pink hair, '90s rocker style and colourful vocabulary, this rebel always has a drink in hand and spends long nights out on the town – which more often than not end in promiscuity. She doesn't let a man tie her down (except the Japanese Mafia leader she accidentally married one night – but we'll just put that to one side), she's happy doing her own thing. Seeking a coin-operated boy to please her at her say-so and be tucked away when it all gets too much, this go-getter is self-confident, self-made and self-loving.
There's a whole lotta schoolyard catcalling, finger pointing, judgemental stares, nasty slurs and back stabbing – and not just at the audience. Babushka don't do things by halves, these girls go ga-ga for femme. Maternity, feminism, body image, materialism and consumerism – 'Doll' has it all. From frigids to sluts, pretentious preps to simple Susies, couch surfers to gym junkies, business bending babes to travel-bug-bitten wanderlusters – stereotypes are covered in-full.Exploring every orifice, every accessory and every accusation, 'Doll' asks tricky questions – how do we use dolls to objectify, pacify, falsify and deny? Answer: it doesn't matter! They're plastic play-things, much like the toy trucks and blow-up hammers we give little boys. Barbie didn't let Ken hold her back, and women shouldn't let society hold them back.
So what did Ken and Barbie do when you weren't looking? Whatever the hell they wanted, that's their business, not yours.
Babushka's 'Doll' plays the Judith Wright Centre until 23 May.
