Paper Dolls: A Beautiful Piece Despite Some Creases
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| The Paper Dolls... All dolled up. Photo by Stan Barouh. |
If you’ve ever thought what it would be like to cross an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race with a searing Middle East drama and put all of the action to pop hits of the early aughts, Paper Dolls the perfect show for you. Mosaic Theater Company’s newest entry to their Voices from a Changing Middle East cycle is a delightful piece of sheer entertainment. The show unfortunately tries to cover too many topics, however, and is thus unable to reach the dramatic heights some of its subject matter calls for.
Based on the award-winning 2006 Israeli documentary of the same name, Paper Dolls reveals the world of five gay male Filipino nurses in Tel Aviv who care for elderly Orthodox and Chasidic men six days a week. On the seventh day? They become the Paper Dolls and headline their very own drag show. At one such performance, the group is spotted by a young gay documentarian, Etai (John Bambery, who does good work with a thinly written role), who wishes to make a movie about the group—believing these “oriental ladyboys” to be the most fascinating people he has seen. When the group agrees to work with Etai and some of his club connections, rifts develop and the Paper Dolls risk losing the bond that unites them.
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