The most powerful country songs are those written from the heart. In the words of Harlan Howard, it is about “three chords and the truth”. Actor Charlene Boyd has applied the same principle to her bold and exposing one-woman play.
It is less a show about June Carter Cash than a show about making a show about the feted singer. Spiked with personal and political rage, it is a story of Boyd finding common voice with the woman who co-wrote Ring of Fire only to be eclipsed in fame by her sometime husband Johnny Cash and repeatedly sidelined by a sexist industry.
June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me begins like a tribute act as Boyd prowls the cabaret tables with big hair, long dress and Appalachian accent. But this is a play started in lockdown when Boyd was newly divorced and feeling a mother’s guilt, and it is not long before the actor looks behind the singer’s cornball comedy act at the Grand Ole Opry to find a woman of resilience and creativity.
“Anyone can write a life of June Carter Cash,” the singer’s daughter Carlene Carter tells Boyd when she meets her on a 10-day American odyssey. “But only you can write about why this story matters to you.”
In Cora Bissett’s inventive production for the National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron, on an expansive set by Shona Reppe that is half dressing room, half Nashville stage, it is advice Boyd accepts wholeheartedly. She is not above joining her three-piece band on I Walk the Line or Willie Nelson’s Crazy, but the show’s tremendous emotive power comes from her willingness to talk about class, money, insecurity, misogyny and motherhood directly as they affect her.
Far from fan worship, this is an act of artistic connection – raw, radical and revealing.
At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 24 August. Then touring until 22 September.
