Dolly Parton is big in so many ways – the hair, the bust, the voice, the status as a country music legend, the sunny reputation. But it is the latter which presents a problem for a show like Here You Come Again, which seeks to leverage her iconography for some seriocomic dramatic stakes. Any meaning you can extract from Parton is intrinsically limited, endless platitudes strung together like fairy lights over a void.
On one level this is a tribute show, and that is perhaps the only level at which it really works. Star and co-creator Tricia Paoluccio has an uncanny knack not just for mimicry but for the precise inflections and syntax of Parton’s crystalline voice. She has the same indefatigable ebullience too, a monster truck with a dazzlingly white smile painted across its bumper. Most of the show’s appeal emanates from her portrayal, which is simplistic but also spot on.
If only we didn’t have to sit through everything else. Co-writer and director Gabriel Barre (with unspecified contributions from Bruce Vilanch) hangs a series of Parton songs – some genuine hits like 9 to 5 and Jolene, but also a lot of substandard country filler – across a painfully thin story of a solipsistic manchild mourning his youth.
Kevin (Dash Kruck) is holed up in his parents’ attic during the Covid pandemic, depressive and self-medicating. He’s just broken up with his boyfriend Jeremy (Bailey Dunnage), an improbably young hedge fund manager with an attitude problem, while pining inexplicably for his high school friend Sean. Suddenly, Dolly materialises from a closet poster, beaming and bursting with aphorisms. She’ll help facilitate some major changes in Kevin’s life, get him “to stop looking in mirrors and start looking out windows.”
This device, with Parton as fantastical vision and guardian angel, has been done before and far better than here. Muriel’s Wedding the Musical utilised Abba in a similar way, but where that show modulated and deepened the conceit, Here You Come Again flattens and extends it unremittingly. Once Parton shows up, she simply bludgeons Kevin with her positivity until he capitulates. It’s conceivably what Parton might do in real life, but it’s tedious and dramatically moribund.
The writers do introduce some elements of poignancy and depth, tapping into the sense of desolation around Covid, its tendency to strip our former selves of meaning – although Fiona Harris and Mike McLeish have mixed success in adapting the work to an Australian context. But Kevin is an anodyne and fleshless protagonist, less interesting than the writers seem to think, and his arc is predictable and schmaltzy. Combined with Parton’s almost aggressive optimism, it’s like adding sweetener to a bowl of sugar.
Technically, the production is sharp and engaging, full of tricks and stage illusions and lit with maximalist enthusiasm by Jason Bovaird. Paul Wills’ design is highly detailed and surprisingly versatile. Barre’s pacing and attention to shifting moods means the show is never boring, even if we know precisely where it’s going at any moment. The tight band, with musical direction by Andrew Worboys, is terrific.
Performances, apart from Paoluccio’s, are patchy and schematic. Minor roles incline toward garish caricature and Kruck can’t summon enough charisma to counteract Kevin’s tendency to moping and self pity. As Parton herself, Paoluccio is both drawcard and linchpin, slyly subversive (as far as the hagiographic script allows) and cheerfully persuasive. Her accent wobbles from time to time, but for the most part it’s an impressive feat.
Fandom – that inclination to both idolise and imprison our heroes – is the engine that keeps Here You Come Again running, but without a commensurate interest in fame’s id, its anaesthetising quality, the effect is strangely off-putting. Like an advertisement on repeat. Paoluccio is highly talented, and in a straight tribute act her performance might be entrancing and true. But this vehicle suggests more than it aims to deliver, and we are left with a show that is both too serious and not serious enough. Parton enthusiasts will probably love it, but the rest of us may feel like we’re staring into a rhinestone-flecked abyss as we reach for the Southern Comfort.
Here You Come Again is on at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne until 20 July, then returns 23 October - 2 November. It will also head to Perth’s Regal Theatre, Theatre Royal Sydney, Civic Theatre Newcastle, Canberra Theatre Centre and Adelaide’s Her Majesty’s Theatre; see here for all dates.
