Steel Magnolias

The story begins on the morning of Shelby’s wedding day, set in Truvy’s beauty shop in Chinquapin, Louisiana.  The set depicted a traditional 1980’s salon, with some nice simple touches to enhance the set. The well-chosen costumes complimented the passing of time, with simple changes to the salon helping with this as well.

Deb Sparshott as Truvy Jones gave a confident performance as the stereotypical southern girl, a strong business-woman who clearly had a lot of love for her friends.  Leila Francis as Annelle Dupuy was suitably nervous and timid, and we saw her grow into a stronger young woman as the story progressed.  Paulette Harris as Clairee - clearly an accomplished performer with good comic timing - was very natural in her role.  Sharon Goodwin at M’Lynn achieved a good mother hen character, who clearly cared very much for Shelby.  Shelby, the strong young bride was portrayed well by Louise Burtenshaw, she gave us a really competent performance of a determined young lady, and the diabetic episode was dealt with well.  And finally Jean Speller caused a change in atmosphere in the story as she gave a strong performance as Ouiser; Jean was great as the quirky friend of the group. In the sadder moments, I did wonder if some of the cast were losing too much control of their emotions. Thankfully Paulette Harris and Jean Speller were able to distill any worries I had and lifted the emotions back up with their Clairee & Ouiser characters.

The accents were well rehearsed, and generally felt very natural. Obviously some found it easier than others, but it was clear that a lot of time had been spent on this aspect of the production.  The pace was a little slow at times, and it felt like a few people were hesitating on their lines but other than that, the performance was confident.  The scene changes were a little slow, but I understand the cast needed time to change and this may be the reason.

The lighting was good, and worked for the setting. The sound levels were good, and suitable for the play.  I really liked the display on the wall with information about each cast member- that was a nice touch.

A really lovely production of this play focusing on the bond of friendship between a group of ladies, supporting each other in times of happiness and sadness.

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