The name of Alexa Wyatt is a familiar one if you have a subscription to ACORN (or any number of other international TV streamers.) Wyatt is an extremely prolific Australian writer/producer responsible for such global hits as McLeod’s Daughters, Janet King and Police Rescue. Back in 1992 she found time to write a play called The Look about the beauty industry – and the work is now on stage as the second COVID-influenced production to be launched by Trevor Schmidt’s Northern Light Theatre. Apparently the playwright has updated the work for current production. (Probably a good thing because what industry changes more than fashion?)

The adventurous Schmidt displayed his pandemic-coping dexterity with last November’s We Had a Girl Before You, a one person tour-de-force (with brilliant performer Kristen Johnston). The Look is more ambitious – not a movie nor some kind of bastard television show but a taped play with close-ups and long shots, lighting, the ingenious use of space and an over the top theatrical aesthetic. The Look artistically exists as its own thing.

Marylin Miles (Linda Grass) was for 10 years the famous “Estelle Girl,” a tall, beautiful, glamorous queen of the world over which she regally presided. As the play begins she stands, a high princess of fashion, behind her altar loaded with company product. “We cover up what nature overdid – or forgot,” she explains brightly. As she talks we see, with beautifully appointed high-fashion shots on a rear screen of Grass,  the “looks” she has introduced over the years. As she gushes on we realize that that she is no longer the Estelle Girl but has been demoted to National Promotions Coordinator – a glorified version of the pitch girls we see when we enter any department store. The current queen is “Camille.” “It takes more than make-up. You have to have the face,” sniffs Marylin.

As she begins her pitch we note she is coming apart – her lecture drifting from sensible advice (“A good complexion is what you need to overcome an alien universe) into barely controlled madness. This is a woman who has always allowed herself to be controlled by others and has no sense of her own worth. The collapse begins when one of her thick make-up eye compounds falls off leaving her face weirdly lopsided. “Chronic sustained use of mascara will do that,” she explains. As she talks of her various “looks” over the years she turns to the audience (clever use of camera and split-second editing from Multi-Media ace Ian Jackson giving the impression that Schmidt is using a multi-camera team) and applies the makeup on top of what was there before – ending with what was one of her final “shoots”- as Dracula in a dank back alley. As she mentally deteriorates she visually turns from harridan to horror.

Marylin was discovered as a teen by Jacques Dupon who took over the world wide company from his mother. The cad turns out to have been a serial seducer. He obviously enjoyed and sampled Marylin’s various “looks.” Says the model, “At Estelle we sell beauty not sex,” but anyone who reads the magazines knows the perfidy of that comment. After one shoot where she plays a very young sex object, complete with stuffed Teddy Bear, she tells us that Dupon asked her to bring the toy to bed that night. “Marrying the man who created you is not a good idea,” she dryly comments. “The fashion industry puts you on a pedestal to look up your skirt.“

Marylin comments hopefully. “This is the best lecture I’ve ever given,” but we soon learn it is also her last. “I can sleep in tomorrow,” she observes ruefully in a last sad effort at a beauty tip, “Women of my age need their beauty sleep.”

The production works its way through dark comedy to heartbreak. The ending of this sad tale is obvious from the start but the production demands such empathy with the subject that it comes as a wrenching experience.

Over the years, Grass has given us a remarkable range of characters – mostly when working with Schmidt (The Beard/Miss Margarita’s Way). You might think, given her statuesque structure, that playing, say, a Hobbit or a Minion might be out of her range until you remember she played a snake in Schmidt’s Congo Song. Grass is utterly believable as the mannequin finding a humanity that even her subject is probably not aware of. The skilful actor demands we believe her as she cries out to an unfeeling universe, “I’m a real person with thoughts and feelings.”

The made-it-up-as-we-went-along mantra of production advance stories is belied in the smoothness of the final product. Schmidt provided the direction, sets and costumes. The spare but telling sound comes from Darren Hagen and the quite stunning Vogue-ready fashion shots of Marylin in her various “looks” were artfully imagined by Kendra Humphrey.

The world premiere of The Look can be seen on Vimeo, a video sharing platform, until Jan 31. Tickets are $30.00. A note from the theatre on their website suggests there is the possibility of a hold-over into February.

Photos by Epic Photography