Rubies in the Rough

Four glamorous women are sitting on the low sofas of The Assembly Rooms' Members Bar, backs straight and legs gracefully crossed. They seem almost to be of a time when young women were taught deportment alongside their three Rs. As the elegant visions smilingly say hello through identically red lipsticked mouths, one wonders if this is cosmetic preference or a kind of interview uniform.

Jessica Sadler, Jenny Grove, Susanna Fiore and Tara Siddall (or as they like to be known professionally, Jess Doll, Jen Doll, Susie Doll and T Doll) first met when they were cast as the Mitford sisters in a play. This required them to sing together. The four started meeting weekly to rehearse songs, and when their individual acting work dried up, it seemed the natural next step to put their singing to use “and try to make some money out of it." It says a great deal about them that singing alone soon proved unsatisfactory: “It felt rather vacuous, we didn’t want to just stand around in pretty dresses. So we went back to our theatrical roots.” Thus, The Ruby Dolls were born. "Although," muses Jess Doll with a twinkle, "we do still like the pretty dresses."

The Ruby Dolls pride themselves on their exploratory, boundary breaking approach to cabaret. As Susannah Fiore—initially the quietest of the group—explained, "It’s very cool at the moment to dress in 1940s outfits, and to sing in close part harmonies. But we feel that we’re doing something different to that: something richer and more profound." The rest of the Dolls nod in agreement before breaking into laughter on realising how self-important this might sound.  "We’re interested in where cabaret meets theatre, and the fusion between the two."

Their first show was commissioned by the Arcola Theatre as part of a German season commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Called Ein Abend Mit Ruby, the show drew on the traditions of cabaret in Weimar Germany and mixed political, historical and economic exegesis with a selection of writing by and about women. From the Arcola, Ein Abend Mit Ruby transferred to the Soho Theatre where it attracted the attention of Gene Kirk, Jermyn Street Theatre’s artistic director, who immediately offered the Dolls a residency. It was during this time that their Edinburgh show, Rubies in the Attic, was created. The group credit Gene Kirk with sparking the initial idea. Cabaret, he told them, is, and was, personal, drawing on the performer’s real life. “We decided to look at what cabaret means to us and decided it was about telling real personal stories directly to our audience. By taking the intimacy of cabaret, as well as its variety, and bringing that into theatre, we can really break down that fourth wall."

On realising that their forebears had either come from or lived in countries all over the world, the dolls decided to make the histories of their own families the basis for their new production. British identity, Tara observes, "is multicultural…we have a snapshot of that in our own families." For this new production the Dolls wrote their own material and took the step of getting rid of their microphones in case they formed a barrier between themselves and the audience. The result is a startlingly intimate production of exceptional emotional power.

The process of devising the piece turned out to be unexpectedly emotional for the Dolls, and made them realise how reluctant families can be to talk about the past. "There were stories about my grandmother I wanted to use," said Susannah, "which my dad was very unhappy about…The process brought up questions over the ownership of stories. Who has the greater right to the family history?"

Such deep thinking is typical. The Ruby Dolls are unmistakeably a group of intelligent, witty, young women – and for all their theatrical experimentation they come across as sensible and not in the slightest pretentious. What on earth are they doing, then, with a name like The Ruby Dolls?  Doesn’t it make them sound a bit like a strip-tease act? Especially when combined with their Dita Von Teese, scarlet-mouthed and pinched-in waist aesthetic?

Tara is the first to respond. "Well, we don’t take our clothes off!" She explains that in keeping with cabaret traditions, their stage personas are heightened versions of themselves. This allows the group to bring their real relationships into their performance while still allowing themselves to keep a distance between their on and off-stage selves. The name stands for their constructed identity. I am also reminded that their work has German roots, and the very sexuality of 1930s German cabaret was a powerful political statement. Besides, as Jess points out with disarming honesty, it brings in the punters: "We’re quite honest about the fact that we market ourselves within a recognisable cabaret framework, but we hope that the audiences will then be surprised at the intelligence of what we do.”