Tuned in to Radio National on the morning of this Sydney opening night, I caught an interview with Stacey Page, a former hairdresser and current PhD student at University of Adelaide. She was speaking of research spotlighting the need to better equip beauticians, hairdressers and nail technicians to manage the emotional labour they undertake when the salon chair turns into a therapist’s couch. Too often, Page argued, the client walks away unburdened, leaving the salon worker carrying all the baggage.

It went some way to sharpening my appreciation for Robert Harling’s comedy-drama Steel Magnolias, in which a hair salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana doubles as a de facto community centre for the town’s women and a place to air their worries.

Managed by the ebullient Truvy (played here by Mandy Bishop, in Dolly Parton-style tresses), it’s a place where young and old can talk things out, indulge in gossip and speak freely about their lives – away from men who seem to have more time for shooting, hunting and barbecuing than for their partners.

Steel Magnolias: Debra Lawrance, Lotte Beckett, Jessica Redmayne and Mandy Bishop. Photo © Brett Boardman

Directed by Lee Lewis – who has moved from one commercial theatre property to another of late (Gaslight; Shirley Valentine; Yasmina Reza’s Art) and made each a winner – this production is bright, briskly paced and very well made. Every aspect of the staging works to highlight the strengths of Harling’s script, to the point where we don’t much care about its contrivances.

There’s always room for Steel Magnolias to feel calculatedly soapy. Here it comes across as warm, wry and more authentic than you might expect. 

Much of the dialogue is delivered straight to the auditorium, with Truvy’s clients bouncing their conversations off the invisible salon mirror of the fourth wall, creating an appealing sense of intimacy and directness. Paul Jackson’s skilful lighting subtly underscores the play’s shifting moods. Simone Romaniuk’s costumes capture the vividness of the 1980s without tipping into parody. The play is guillotined into acts by curtain drops, but the pick-ups are immediate; the pace never flags.

Mandy Bishop sparkles as the upbeat Truvy, making physical choices that are both funny and revealing. Debra Lawrance – who featured in the 2009 Australian touring production – and Belinda Giblin make a prickly comic double act out of the wealthy widow Claree and the eccentric Ouiser.

Steel Magnolias: Jessica Redmayne, Mandy Bishop, Debra Lawrance and Lotte Beckett. Photo © Brett Boardman

Jessica Redmayne is excellent as the vivacious, then ailing Shelby. It’s no easy feat to make a bumper-sticker line like “I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special” sound sincere, but she does.

Lisa McCune gets to exploit her full range as Shelby’s tightly wound mother, while Lotte Beckett brings welcome shading to Annelle, a runaway newlywed who transforms into a born-again Christian and expectant mother before the evening is out.

What ultimately gives this production its staying power is the sense that the salon itself is the play’s true protagonist. By the final scene, Steel Magnolias feels less like a slice of nostalgia than a reminder of how badly people still need places where they can sit, talk and be heard.

Steel Magnolias plays at Theatre Royal, Sydney until 30 May. 

It then plays IPAC, Wollongong (3–11 June); Canberra Theatre Centre (17–21 June); His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth (7–18 July) and the Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, (23 July– 9 August).

For bookings and information visit steelmagnoliasplay.com