Steel Magnolias – a warm welcome and a listening ear for the regulars in Truvy’s salon sanctuary every Saturday morning (Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July)

Hair salons can be a bit of a go to setting in theatre for safe ‘third’ spaces where women can gather and support each other. They’re places of community, of conversation and pampering aimed at boosting wellbeing across the sisterhood.

In Robert Harling’s 1987 play Steel Magnolias, chatty Truvy opens up the Louisiana salon attached to her home every Saturday morning, a precious time reserved for just her most regular customers. The audience watch six women spend four mornings in each other’s company.

The chairs in Truvy’s salon create a confessional environment, and she can sense what’s written in your heart by staring at your scalp, although the hairdresser offers polished nails and well-coiffed hair rather than psychoanalysis. Orla Mullan brings warmth and wit to the stylish mother hen whose own family have detached themselves from her love, Truvy’s heart has space for everyone’s complicated lives, particularly if she detects a whiff of romance.

The door onto the street opens and in walks M’Lynn who is long past even trying to temper the activities of her gun-toting husband. She pours all her concern into wanting the best for her daughter Shelby. The mental health counsellor carries so many people’s secrets and weaknesses. Janet Moran plays the character who most externalises her emotions with a quiet dignity and gravitas.

Pink-obsessed but never Barbie-like, Shelby is in her mid-20s. She lives with type 1 diabetes and is reluctant to let it dictate her life choices. Her first entrance into the salon is on the morning of her wedding. She’s finally on the cusp of cutting ties and claiming her independent. Simone Collins gives Shelby grit and determination as she lives with the consequences of her actions.

Meanwhile, town grandee Clairee is searching for meaning and identity amongst the busyness of life following the death of her husband who was the Mayor. Marion O’Dwyer’s Clairee lounges on the salon’s sofa and throws pithy one-liners into the mix, breaking up tension with hilarity.

Ouiser is never first on the scene but the twice-married moaning widow disrupts whatever’s happening anytime she storms through the salon door. Carol Moore is almost (and quite perfectly) typecast in this outspoken role, a spirited presence on stage when playwright Harling finally deems it necessary to deploy the unfiltered Ouiser into a scene. At times, the interactions between Clairee and Ouiser feel like something out of The Golden Girls, a US TV series that playwright Harling could well have been familiar with.

New to the town, Annelle is hired as a junior stylist and Truvy quickly adopts her almost as a daughter. Annelle’s reticence to talk about herself is gradually replaced with a boldness to speak about her flourishing faith as she tries to turn her life around. Early on in the play, Truvy opines to Clairee about Annelle “I think there’s a story here” remarks” … seeding a complete red herring in the dramatic thrust of the piece! Eímhear Jackson blends the slight Annelle into the background as she washes the hair and sets the rollers of customers before Annelle’s confidence rises and she starts sharing her uncompromising opinions.

Costume designer Catherine Kodicek has had great fun dressing the characters in bright colours and busy patterns. There’s a consistency to the Southern accents drilled into the cast by dialect coach Megan McDonnell. While working scissors are out of the question for a show that plays eight times a week, Mullan and Jackson confidently wash and style the salon’s customers in real time as the drama unfolds. Set designer Ronán Duffy sneaks in a couple of levels to the car port extension, using steps up to doors to give characters’ entrances a bit of a lift.

Walking into the main theatre, it was heartening to spot two fans gently spinning above the salon set. Outside the Lyric Theatre, the wind had finally picked up and the temperature noticeably dropped from a very muggy afternoon spent in its café celebrating the launch of arts critic Jane Coyle’s new book – A Better Locksmith – revisiting productions, personalities and turning points that have shaped stages across Northern Ireland.

Steel Magnolias is the latest in what has almost become a 2026 season of shows about strong women – The Human Voice (Prime Cut), Consumed (Paines Plough), Tea In A China Cup, Bold Girls (Centre Stage) – that will finish with a revival of 2024’s Little Women returning to the Lyric stage over Christmas. (Kabosh’s Cuckoo-Land, Tinderbox’s Animal Farm (both in The MAC) and Kabosh’s Mary Ann, The Forgotten Sister which returned recently over at Clifton House also deserve nods.)

After decades of men dominating writing, directing and acting the big roles, it’s good to see a rebalancing. Women in last night’s audience outnumbered men by about 10 to 1 which makes me wonder about whether audiences are driving programming or vice versa. Is the reliance on well-recognised titles (there’s a starry 1989 film version of Steel Magnolias) and dipping into the back catalogue of female playwrights’ older work about bringing commercially viable audiences into theatres? Contemporary theatre seems to be taking an even bigger back seat in these challenging times. Is this the new reality of theatregoing for larger venues in Northern Ireland?

What does an evening spent in a Louisiana hairdressers offer with six white women, talk of shrimp boils (the fishy equivalent of a meaty BBQ), and no mention of racial tensions? There’s a lot of references to acceptance in the play’s second act but the types of diversity are limited.

To be sure, after lots of per-interval exposition, and post-interval jeopardy, the final scene is an emotional roller-coaster that had ugly tears streaming down my face as the women form deeper perspectives on each other’s lives. Hats off to director Emily Foran for avoiding the earlier opportunities to introduce hysteria into the simmering ensemble and only letting things go properly wild at the denouement.

These six women rely on their inner steel to overcome personal and family adversity. They have learned that they can lean on each other through thick and thin. The relationships that they built in Truvy’s salon are not delicate. Once inducted into the Saturday morning club, they’re sure of companionship throughout any storms that hit their lives.

Steel Magnolias continues at the Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport 

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