Review: ★★★★ Lip Service (Ensemble Theatre)

In the early 1900s, the only women who wore makeup were showgirls and prostitutes. The growth of the movie industry expanded that customer base to actors, who required heavy makeup to accentuate their features. 

That was the thin edge of a respectability wedge that cleaved a market for a new lucrative industry - cosmetics.   

At the forefront of the new enterprise opportunity were two very savvy, resilient, ambitious, competitive women, equally powerful and equally loathing of each other: Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. 

Lip Service is a hilarious new play by John Misto that enters the story of the famous Rubinstein/Arden rivalry in the 1950s with both women having built their empires, amassed extraordinary wealth, ripened in age and been strangely, reluctantly brought together against the undiscriminating threat from new player, Charles Revson's Revlon.    

The plot is based on whatever truth can be attained after negotiating headlines, hearsay and the apocryphal legends that surrounded these larger than life women. Indeed the "facts" they themselves each gave about their own personal lives rank in authenticity alongside the claims they made about their respective products. (After all, their life's work was about exaggerating good features and hiding blemishes.)

Nevertheless, their quarrel was public and newsworthy, with much of the venom-spitting captured in print. Only the infamous jousts between Crawford and Davis could compare with the delightfully caustic one-liners flung like grenades across enemy kohl lines. 

Misto has cast his play with only three onstage characters: Rubinstein, Arden and Rubinstein's young, Irish, charmingly gormless assistant, Patrick O'Higgins. The stage design and production is minimal with new settings indicated by an overhead lit up sign. 

This sparsity not only doesn't hurt the play but in fact allows the story to move at a quicker pace, bringing focus deservedly to the characters and dialogue, and leaving the lavish backdrops and surrounds to the boundless imagination of the audience. Besides, Rubinstein's personality completely fills every corner of the stage, so there's little room for props. 

Naturally, a play with only three characters and limited special effects relies heavily on the performances - absolutely no disappointment here! 

Tim Draxl plays Irishman Patrick O'Higgins like a sweet, naive ingenue. He has a physical humour and endearing helplessness reminiscent of male leads in classic 1950s sitcoms.

Linden Wilkinson is cool, calculating and dry as an empty Martini glass in her portrayal of Elizabeth Arden. She imbues her movements and speech with a sense of strategic control.

But undeniably, it's Amanda Muggleton's bold, garish, scene-chewing performance as Helena Rubinstein that adds the high gloss coating to Misto's gloriously, bitingly funny script. Muggleton embodies Rubinstein as if she were channelling the Polish faux princess, playing her with mischief and nonchalance that enhances her perfectly timed one-liners. 

The audience laughed appreciably at every joke, often to the point where actors had to pause. 

And yet, there were moments - albeit only a few - but moments of heart-wrenching poignancy; genuinely sad without forced sentimentalism; reminding us that these were all real people with real lives and real emotions beneath the powdered facade. 

The buzz will spread fast so get tickets soon - you might have to compete with people going back for seconds. 

Ensemble Theatre presents Lip Service, Aug 17 - Sep 30