Venue: Theatre Royal
Sydney
Dates: until May 30th
Let’s be honest about what we’re dealing with. Steel Magnolias is a play in which six women sit in a beauty salon in Louisiana and talk at each other for two hours and twenty minutes. There are no plot twists. No villain. No second act in the dramatic sense. Just a slow, perfumed march from a wedding to a funeral, held together by excellent one-liners and the audience’s willingness to cry at things they knew were coming.
The question in 2026 is not whether the cast can deliver – they absolutely can – but whether the material deserves them.
Director Lee Lewis has assembled a who’s-who of Australian television royalty, and the ensemble chemistry is genuine. Everyone brings their best game, even when the script isn’t quite returning the favour. Lotte Beckett acquits herself particularly well as the endearingly chaotic Annelle, holding her own in very distinguished company. One notes, however, that the wigs are doing a great deal of heavy lifting – architecturally, emotionally, historically. Authentically 1980s Louisiana? Almost certainly. A public health concern? Possibly. They deserve their own curtain call.
The production is technically assured (Designer Simone Romaniuk, Lighting Design Paul Jackson). The set shifts subtly across time with real elegance, and the dialect work is exceptional (Dialect Coach: Jennifer White) with not a single Aussie vowel escaping across two hours and twenty minutes. You are, convincingly, in Louisiana.
The emotional manipulation is also convincing. Which brings us to the why. The play was written by Robert Harling about his own sister’s death – and that authentic grief is the steel beneath the magnolia, the thing that stops it tipping into pure confection. But in 2026, when stories of women’s friendship and resilience have become an entire genre, often far less pink and far more structurally interesting, you do find yourself wondering what exactly is being argued here that couldn’t be argued better, or more urgently, somewhere else.
Strong casting does not automatically make a strong case for revival. What it makes is a pleasant evening with people you’d probably enjoy having a drink with afterwards. The banter is sharp, the timing is OK, and the emotional payoff arrives precisely on schedule because it always does, because it always has, because that is rather the point of Steel Magnolias.
A note on the hairspray: the first spray was disappointingly timid. In a play that essentially is hairspray – the theatricality, the hold, the artificial sheen – you want ferocity from the opening aerosol. We did not get it.
The play’s big statement – that women are strong, that grief is hard, that friendship endures – is not exactly breaking news. The 1988 Australian premiere featured a then-unknown Nicole Kidman in her professional stage debut and had the electricity of discovery. This production has the comfort of familiarity, which is, depending on your ambitions for the evening, either exactly enough or mildly insufficient.
Take anyone who has ever used the phrase “I’m not crying, you’re crying,” unironically. You will not be bored. You will not be challenged. The emotional residue will linger, which is more than can be said for the hairspray.
The cast: better than this. The play: a beloved relic doing its beloved relic thing. The hairspray: pull your finger out.
photos by Brett Broadman
Kate Gaul, Theatre Now
