Steel Magnolias

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

The Denver Victorian Playhouse knows a good thing when they see it. Last January when Steel Magnolias opened at Miners Alley Playhouse under the direction of Robert Kramer, Wade and Lorraine Wood jumped on it for The Victorian Playhouse. Brilliant move on their part.

With the same incredible cast, Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias nestles onto the Vic’s stage with a set designed by Sarah Roshan as though it truly belongs there.

The six astonishing theatre artists fly with their characters through humored gossip, honest brittle reactions played back and forth, and heart felt emotions by individuals who know each other well living in the small town of Chapapiquin, Louisiana.

Truvy’s Beauty Salon nestles so comfortably on the Vic’s stage, one almost wants to make an appointment with Truvy’s backbone, Sally Clodfelter. Truvy keeps Saturday for her town folk close friends. It’s not only a time for the ladies to get their hair done but to celebrate the connection running tightly between them, to take jabs at each other, to probe, to reveal secrets, and pry into suspected secrets.

Truvy’s outgoing warm personality turns the salon into a home away from home.

On one particular Saturday, everyone is abuzz over Shelby’s wedding day. Deirde O’Connor glows with Shelby’s persona, her excitement over her wedding, her determination to live her own life, her tussles with her mother, M’Lynn (Kristin Fuhrman Clark) to have her hair done exactly the way she wants it, to make her own decisions no matter what the cost. M’Lynn has reason to be concerned. Shelby, a diabetic, has been warned it would be dangerous to bare a child. A scene in Act II with Clark sitting in a chair upstage away from the turbulent action commands shuddering attention. M’Lynn learned Shelby is pregnant. While the others ooh and coo over Shelby, the depth of emotion circling anxiety and fear plays across her face. Clark has perfected this with powerful force. M’Lynn doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to.

Shelby’s explanation to her mother cuts to the quick when she says “I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” O’Connor owns Shelby, as do all of the actors, but Shelby’s line comes from the heart and she becomes a very real person with a heart, soul and defined determination.

Just before the salon opens on Shelbys wedding day, Truvy puts Annelle (Theresa Adams) to the test. Annelle moved to the small town two weeks ago, staying in a boarding house across the river where the landlady stares at her through the keyhole. She was married, but now she’s not so sure. So desperate for the job, her wracked nerves trips her up with flubbed mistakes, awkward confusion. Nothing goes right for her. Behind the comic turn of events, lies a frightened uncertain young woman. Adams is spectacular, a natural comedienne, who demonstrates perfected timing. It is difficult to keep the eyes off her as she flows with perpetual motion.

Truvy exhibits silent honest exasperation and at the same time mother hen patience. Without a word spoken on the subject, Truvy recognizes something special in Annelle, knowing she can bring it out. O’Connor’s ability to allow Annelle to grow comfortably and realistically throughout the course of the play is stunning to watch. O’Connor has control of the playful, flighty young woman. In the beginning her dumbfounded expressions are worth the price of the ticket. Later her over zealous ultra conservative Christian exuberance for the Riverside Baptist Church is classic, and she grows into a beautifully happily married woman secure in her place.

Carol Rust allows her character Clairee to relax in her uncertainty, her displacement of once being someone important in the town as the Mayor’s wife, of strutting her self-importance to not knowing who she is or what she is suppose to do. Her husband died leaving her holding the bag. She misses him and she misses the Mayor’s wife position. Rust throws herself into the character with all four feet commanding her own attention as her confidence grows with the purchase of the radio station KPPD. Rust relaxes within Clairee, and Clairee takes over.

Then there’s an explosion on stage with the slamming of a door, and a loud mouth, disheveled woman dressed in coveralls barges onto the scene stopping every other conversation in its tracks. It’s Ouiser wearing the façade of bully, a tongue with a triple-edged sword, rough around the edges and rougher in the middle. Through her own admission she’s not crazy, she’s just been in a bad mood for 40 years. Somewhere behind this dynamite explosive pint size bundle of uncouth verbiage, lives Terry Ann Watts. She blew me away the first time around, and sent me into orbit this time. Her ownership and command of Ouiser flies beyond awesome.

Even though the others may find it difficult to express, and Quiver’s caustic outbursts denies it, it is clear underneath the guff an honest affection binds them all together. The kind of honest affection existing in small towns, but frequently difficult to come by in large cities, where lives play out amongst each other through the silly, the petty, the perky, the bitter, the angst, the despair, the heartbreaking, the anger, while the tie that binds proves stronger than anything else they could live through.

This cast captures every nuance, every development, with a comprehension and understanding of who they are and what they are doing. The language down home, colorful small town talk. When Truvy describes Annelle’s new boyfriend, it’s with the off the top of her head confident non-thinking, “He doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.”

It matters little if one has seen Steel Magnolias 50 times; this is one production that should not be missed under any circumstances. I’d put this production smack up against any production of Steel Magnolias anywhere in the universe. It is that good, and then some.

The cast and production company have not only created a magical swirl of energy on stage, but the town’s energy can be felt through the salon door with Truvy’s name painted on it. You can see Ouiser’s stripped Magnolia tree, see Drummond, M’Lynn’s husband, shooting birds at random, as well as hear him, and Ouiser’s hairless ugly beloved dog.

Karalyn Pytel supplied the lighting design underscoring the varied shift of emotions as they fly back and forth across the salon from playful frivolity to coping with the heartbreak of an untimely death.Rick Bernstein from Miners Alley Playhouse and El Armstrong designed the sound system so OK the telephone proved temperamental and although it rang off stage the phone preferred to play its own silent role of preferential treatment. That hardly cut into the high-riding quality of this production. It only speaks to live theatre and that things have their own power and control.