HAIRDO

Dueling hairdressers in small-town South Carolina: amusing in concept, tedious in the telling. Miss Ruby, owner and manager of the Celebrity Styling Shop, is reeling with success since her cousin and enemy, Gladys, has closed her beauty shop, Tr‚s Chic, and Gladys' customers are now all Miss Ruby's--and Thurston's, that brilliant, gay stylist who wears green-and-red rhinestones on his high-heeled boots and has an array of the latest shears, curling irons, air guns, etc., along with ""all the mousse anyone would ever need for years."" For 60-ish Yvonne, however--who dresses in uniforms and serves coffee--it's strictly rinse, roll, comb out, tease, and spray. Eventually, all roads of feuds and foolishness here lead to that ""Olympics of hair,"" the Southeast Hair Show in Atlanta. On hand will be: Miss Ruby, whose new venture--changing her salon to ""The OKAY Hair Corral""--has flopped; Gladys, who's making a comeback with an all-European staff; Thurston, whose romance with stylist Duran (seen with Gladys' ""Lars of Norway"") is on the rocks; model Annabella, who's a drunken mess; Ronder, the young cosmetologist who has a marriage problem; Buck, her husband; and Yvonne, who has picked up a besotted admirer. It all ends with a tournament of hairdos: the age-old battle of beautician vs. hair-designer is played out in a grand finale of tease-and-spray and a Giant Beehive. Gilbert knows her salons, and the situations here are often quite funny; but the style is as toneless as an untended mane on the aging customers of any small town's House of Beauty.