Left - Jackie Weaver and Marian Frizelle. Cover - Jennifer Hagan and Marian Frizelle. Photos - Kurt SneddonAs beauty parlour owner, Truvy Jones says, “Laughter through tears is one of my favourite emotions”. This sums up Steel Magnolias which is a comic and heart warming play about the power and enduring spirit of female friendship, Southern style.
The play is well known to many through the very popular film version with Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah. It was the favourite weepy genre film of 1989.
Set in a beauty parlour in Louisana, six women, each with their own difficulties, share confidences and jokes, enjoying a level of intimacy not otherwise found in their lives. They support each other through both the joys and tribulations of marriages, births and death and, as you would expect from a group of steel magnolias, display a depth of emotional strength that eludes their husbands, brothers and sons.
The play opens with the marriage preparations for young Selby’s wedding (played by Marian Frizelle). Despite the excitement of the others, Selby’s mother M’Lynn (Debra Lawrence) is worried about her daughter’s diabetes. These fears are exacerbated later in the play when Selby makes the medically dangerous decision to have a baby.
Robert Harling’s mostly snappy comic script sometimes falls into cliché and mawkishness, but director Darren Yap’s strong and accomplished cast do their best to keep the comedy fresh and steer away from sentimentality. Debra Lawrence delivers a consistently fine and contained performance as M’Lynn.
Jackie Weaver, resplendent with extravagant, boot scooting white curls plays the beauty parlour owner, Truvy. She is full of love and warmth attending to her clients but has strained relationships with her husband and children.
Jennifer Hagan delivers an elegant and droll performance as the recently widowed Clairee Belcher, the town’s grand dame and wife of the ex-mayor. “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!” she says.
Graham McLean’s beauty parlour set is suitably homey and smacks of 1980s small town tastelessness.
The show needs running in before it hits its stride. The comedy, particularly in the first half, is delivered a little under pace and it is not until the wonderful Geraldine Turner appears as grumpy Ouiser, belting out her misanthropic one liners, that the energy levels rise and the show ignites. “The only reason that people are nice to me is that I have more money than God,” she says. The second act moves at a much better pace.
Steel Magnolias delivers sadness, tears, laughter and camaraderie and what it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in heart.
Blackbird Productions
Steel Magnolias
by Robert Harling
Director Darren Yap
Venue: York Theatre, Seymour Centre
Dates: 5 - 28 June
Times: Tuesday-Saturday 8pm ( *Saturday 6 June is a 7.00pm performance)
Matinees: Wednesday 1pm Saturday 2pm Sunday 3pm
Bookings: Ticketek 1300 795 012 or ticketek.com.au | Seymour Centre Box Office (02) 9351 7940 or www.seymourcentre.com.au
