By Darby Turnbull
As Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag says “Hair is everything”. The Salon or Beauty Parlour has always been a place for people, usually of the same gender, to commune and let their guard down. Theatrically it’s a setting of potent possibilities; at her lowest point Elle Woods finds refuge with stylist Paulette. Recent theatrical successes include Inua Ellams Barbershop Chronicles and Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Salon.
Though the perm that looms largest is Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias, currently playing at the Athenaeum Theatre.
Harling wrote the play grieving the loss of his sister Susan, who died due to complications with Type 1 Diabetes. Set over several years in Regional Louisiana, it’s a charming slice of life, filled with pinpoint colloquialisms and delicious, small-town dish.
An Off-Broadway hit in 1987, starring Margo Martindale as Truvy, followed by an even more successful film in 1989, with an almost faultless cast; Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley Maclaine and a young Julia Roberts putting in some career best performances. It’s been in constant rep at regional and community theatres. The piece has more than earned its place in the cultural pantheon as a cult classic. Featuring light melodrama and extended periods of warm, campy banter it’s an unabashedly queer tribute to fabulous, indomitable women. It’s been a formative gay text for nearly forty years, before I’d even seen the film, I was able to quote half the screenplay.
Lee Lewis’ production creates a very tight balance between natural reverence for the material and giving it the vitality it needs so it doesn’t become a diorama. Wisely, she allows the relationships between the sextet to flow organically with sharp attention to emotional nuance. It’s a love fest without being cloying. In the canon of all female plays this one stands apart in just how unabashedly these women adore, support and respect each other and for three hours we’re invited to experience it alongside them.
Simone Romaniuk’s set design for Truvy’s converted garage Salon is cosy and cheery, a safe cocoon for confidences to be shared, laughs to be had and tears shed.
Like many of the mainstage play revivals of the last few years (Shirley Valentine, ART, Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, Death of a Salesman, 39 Steps) there’s a tight resolution not to give the audience any reason to object whatsoever. This has extended to the casting, production and promotion. Harling’s text is relatively apolitical, and the conflicts are purely relational; even an offstage series of gunshots are revealed to be blanks. The exploration of Affluent, White Southern Womanhood isn’t complicated by casting outside of that demographic to explore new angles. Nostalgia and escapism remain unchallenged, which in itself feels like a political statement and reflection of the uneasy tightrope our creatives are currently treading.
However, the virtues of this particular production are abundant even as they coexist in a particular social vacuum.
On the third and final stop of their tour, the ensemble of six has an indelible chemistry that evokes the decades of comradeship that’s grown between the women. Jennifer White’s expert dialect coaching ensures that each character’s voice displays a clear distinction in region and class.
Mandy Bishop, as Salon owner Truvy, shrewdly plays her as a defacto (though unsung) community leader, curating a warm, safe space, alongside Lotte Beckett as her assistant Annelle, they also do a very passable job styling their co-stars wigs in real time. Bishop is a pillar, emphasizing Truvy’s strength and ability to persevere through life’s constant disappointments by being generous with her time, skill and sense of humour. “Laughter through tears is my favourite emotion/I have a strict policy that nobody cry alone in my presence.”
Annelle, the abandoned bride turned born again Baptist is the most thinly written of the six and the easiest to fall into parody. ” My personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair.”
Daryl Hannah in the film pitches her performance about three octaves above her co-stars; but Beckett gives her eccentricities a beautiful sense of naturalism and dignity. In a play where character development is measured in how well timed their bon mots are, Beckett easily claims her share of big laughs as the evening progresses.
Belinda Giblin as the town’s loveable crank, Ousier, who people are nice to because she’s “richer than God”, is a scream. When you enter wearing dungarees and a fur coat, expectations are already lighting rig high and her gruff rejoinders brought howls of delight from the audience. “I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a bad mood for 40 years”.
The latest addition to the company Tracy Mann (succeeding Debra Lawrence) as the recently widowed Clairee is sensational; possessing a faultless aristocratic southern accent and demeanour she makes a full course meal out of her many punch lines (Clairee does get the best lines). However, both Giblin and Mann’s performances are grounded in a profound sense of empathy and wisdom. Some of the most moving moments of the evening are their silent responses to the developing plot.
The throbbing heart of the story is the complicated relationship between M’Lynn and her young adult daughter Shelby. Like Harling’s sister, Shelby has Type 1 Diabetes and has been cared for her by her mother who’s clearly raised her to be independent and self-sufficient but as Shelby begins to assert her agency as an adult, namely her desire to have children despite medical advice, M’Lynn has to reassess how to support her.
Lisa McCune, one of our most self-possessed and subtle actresses is the steeliest of magnolias. She approaches the role from the inside and is arresting in the moments when her stoicism begins to crack. Jessica Redmayne as the effervescent, strong-willed Shelby is an excellent foil for McCune, in an excellently crafted performance, she shows Shelby’s growth during each act as she flourishes as an adult, wife and mother even as her health deteriorates.
Steel Magnolias is the kind of event theatre designed to lure people out of their homes with the promise of a fun, frothy night out and that’s exactly what this production provides.
Image: Brett Boardman
