Lip Service

Lip Service
By John Misto. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Director: Nicole Buffoni. 17 August – 30 September, 2017

Something is wrong. The audience all round is laughing fit to burst while I am unable to crack a smile. The laughs get bigger as the play sets sail and I am left on the shore, lonely and untouched. John Misto’s biographical play about the 1950’s ladies of New York glamour, Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, is not working for me. 

A two-hour collection of camp one-liners and bitchy insults, this should have developed into something bigger, especially when you have actresses like Amanda Muggleton (Rubinstein) and Linden Wilkinson (Arden) to hand. With Muggleton you’re halfway there before you start, dressed to kill, her fingers glowing with sparklers, her black wig piled high. Let the battle begin.

Reducing the story to only three characters puts a strain on things. Tim Draxl plays Patrick, Rubinstein’s gay Irish assistant, called ‘Irish’ at least a thousand times in the course of the play. Like the two women, he is excellent, showing occasional glimpses of reality.

Was Rubinstein empowering or exploiting her millions of clients? We’ll never know, for the blizzard of cruel jokes and campery never allows any development of the theme. Brewing feminism, along with homophobia, anti-Semitism, and racism are passed over lightly. It’s a comedy, after all.

Nicole Buffoni directs, letting her actors rip, giving her audience plenty of laughs and fun.

The setting (by Anna Gardiner) is unhelpful. There are many scene changes, with only slight alterations to the heavy panelling behind. 50’s advertising on radio and television is featured during scene breaks, showing the extent of the Rubinstein empire, untouched by the play.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Prudence Upton.

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