AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP : HEARTFELT FAMILY DRAMA @ KINGS CROSS THEATRE

Featured image – Amanda Stephens Lee as Sue and Janine Watson as her younger sister Doll.

‘If you can’t eat it or put it in your gas tank it ain’t gonna get you far.’ Sue in ‘American Beauty Shop’.

It is not, at all, difficult to work out this play’s subject. The subject is the pain and struggles of life, and how sometimes it pushes us to the edge, leaving us with very little left in the tank.

Formby’s play tells Sue’s story. Amanda Stephens Lee plays Sue, a battler, a resilient middle-aged woman who runs a beauty shop in the south of America, post the Global Financial Crisis.She has raised her daughter Judy, played by Caitlin Burley, single handedly, and shortly into  the play they find out that Judy has won a place in the University course that she has applied for at MIT.

Sue is hoping that, with this news, her life  might  be finally turning around. She has also has high hopes for a hair product that she has created and is set to have a business meeting in regards to it, as well as planning to get a business patent out on it. Sue has kept on adding money into an envelope that she stashes into her favourite pot plant to fund her business venture. Fingers crossed,her venture might pay off, and she may no longer have to pray for a big lotto win.

Through the play we also get to meet the other main people in Sue’s life. There’s Meg, played by Charmaine Bingwa, Sue’s bubbly Afro American shop assistant,  who is tired of the racist slurs that she has to contend with from the local community.

Sue doesn’t have a good relationship with her younger sister Doll, played by Janine Watson. Doll is constantly struggling with paying her bills as well as her battles with the bottle. Sue helps her out but barely tolerates her.

Jill McKay  plays Sue’s long standing regular customer Helen who comes in for a blue rinse. She often doesn’t have the money to pay for the cut and barters with Sue, offering her shopping coupons and the like…

This is a world where everybody is struggling. Through the show brief extracts of radio news bulletins add to this pervading bleakness. Ellen Stanistreet’s set on the small Kings Street Theatre stage features the layout of a no frills beauty shop/salon. Fittingly, the play starts with Sue on her knees trying to fix a leaking pipe under one of the sinks.

Verdict. This was a tough, gritty women only drama that kept one engaged. With the warmth and intimacy of the Kings Cross Theatre and the heartfelt performances by a strong cast, this was a special night in the theatre.

Recommended, the Australian premiere of Dana Lynn Formy’s AMERICAN BEAUTY SHOP, presented by Some Company and Oleg Pupovic in association with bAKEHOUSE, is playing the Kings Cross Theatre until 16th September.