Wayne Tunks has set his new play, ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ in a hairdressing salon which seems like a perfectly fine place to start a play. (Just think ‘Steel Magnolias’). At hairdressing salons, the women are there to talk and discuss things that are that on their mind. And sometimes things just happen to blow up out off all proportion.
There’s plenty of stuff that comes up in ‘Hell hath no Fury’…As the title suggests, there is a woman scorned during the play, and she does exact the ultimate revenge! Then there are the usual dramas that take place within a group of women; problems with kids, housewives that are too busy…
Incredibly, there are some sixteen women’s roles in ‘Hell Hath No Fury’! The playwright came up with lots of different character types giving the actresses plenty to work with.
Allison Griffiths was a bit of a disappointment in the lead role of Roberta, a hard working woman who has achieved her ambition of setting up her own business and has had to cope with a broken marriage. Griffiths came across as a bit ill at ease and tense on stage.
Jessica Fallico was confident and charming in a large role, as Roberta’s teenage daughter, Freddie, who also played the part of the play’s narrator, and introduced the leading characters to the audience.
Home and Away’s Bree Desborough was convincing in the role of Paula, a funky, compassionate lesbian. Jade Alexander was good as Jane, an over-worked housewife, hardly having time to have her haircut!
Emma Harris was impressive as the tough cop, Hannah, as was Ivy Mak as the friendly Asian nail girl, Rita Tan. Millie Zinner was convincing as Libby, the young Paris Hilton look-alike hairdresser, who no-one quite trusted to do her hair right! Felicity Burke was great as the perceptive older woman, a regular visitor to the salon, who had something to say about everything.
Wayne Tunks and Lyndon O’Reilly’s set design was effective. There was plenty of good detail. At the back top of the stage were the big letters reading Roberta’s salon. Far right of the stage was a reception desk. Back of the stage was a large sofa. Lining the front of the stage were a string of salon chairs and basins, with the hairdressers’ busily working on their clients’. On the extreme left was the workspace for the nail artist. The actresses’ entered from back stage right.
My show highlight was the one brassy number that started the second half. The large cast came on stage and belted out a bluesy ballad, singing ‘what good are men?’…All 16 women were on stage, and they used everything in their power to belt out the number including using their state of art hairdryers as microphones!
Summing up, ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ was a clever, entertaining piece of theatre but I don’t think its going to be Tunks’ breakthrough play. His characters still operate too much on a surface level, and he has to mine greater depths if his plays are to go further.
