Flat Rock Playhouse Goes Deep South with Tears that Make You Laugh
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The Cast of Flat Rock Playhouse’s Steel Magnolias. (L-R) Janie Bushway, Linda Edwards, Marcy McGuigan, amanda tong, lexis danca, and lynn llewelyn penny
Seeing Steel Magnolias at Flat Rock Playhouse again was like going to a family reunion on my mother’s side of the family, minus the men. The strong southern women were as endearing and quirky as ever, and, if anything, they had become iconic personalities that are impossible to forget.
Any Southerner worth his or her salt has surely seen Steel Magnolias live on stage or on the big screen. It’s one of those stories you laugh at to keep from crying. And good heavens, you can’t see Steel Magnolias just once. You gotta to see it every time it comes around -- just like you can’t miss a family reunion. Like actors, people change, and you don’t want to miss out on an updated family recipe for tears and cheers.
Opening night this past Friday was overcast and a little humid, but that didn’t stop the scores of patrons from filling in the gaps in the bumper-to-bumper parking lot -- at the direction of both seasoned and wannabe actors in orange vests. As usual, we got there about 45 minutes early to imbibe while milling about the gardens, shaking hands with and hugging those we saw at the last show. When the iron bell rang and we all found our seats, the house was about three-quarters full.
Thank goodness some things never change, and longtime Scenic Designer Dennis C. Maulden had once again set the stage perfectly for a carport-turned-beauty parlor in Louisiana at a time (the 1980s) when portable radios and telephones attached to the wall were still in use. The wallpaper was powder blue with blue floating circles. Glamour shots of women with stylish coiffures hung on the walls. White wicker furniture for sitting and vanities flanked by big light bulbs for the fine-tuning of beauty-making were in place for that sort of did-it-myself look.
Beauty parlor owner Truvy Jones, played by Marcy McGuigan, opens for Saturday morning with her local clientele while onboarding a new employee, Annelle Dupuy-Desoto, played by Amanda Tong. Truvy is always good-natured and quick to wit, but this morning she has her hands full with Annelle, a strange young woman who wants to work hard and do well but is secretive about her past. On top of that, Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie played by Lexis Danca, is getting married and wants Baby’s Breath flowers in her updo. Her mamma M’Lynn Eatenton, played by Lynn Llewelyn Penny, is having a bit of a hard time holding back on the prenuptial advice. Adding more than enough color to a situation already saturated in pink, pink, and more pink is Clairee Belcher, played by Linda Edwards and Ouiser Boudreaux, played by Janie Bushway. Clairee is the former mayor’s socialite widow and Ouiser is the town grump, and both have more money than God.
The women are all astir with matrimonial excitement, but yet there is something amiss, some tension in the air along with frequent and foretelling gunshots heard from nearby. Pre-wedding jitters get the better of the bride and trigger an insulin attack that changes the festive mood of the moment. After force-feeding Shelby some orange juice and calming her down, we learn not only is she diabetic but one of those diabetic women strongly advised by her doctor to never get pregnant. Like all the women in the beauty parlor, Shelby is headstrong and family oriented.
It doesn’t take a Faulkner scholar to figure out where this Southern tragedy is going, but it does take six Southern belles to make it a modern classic. McGuigan as Truvy is as big-hearted as she is sassy. She is a working woman who has taken up the slack from her slacker husband. McGuigan plays this in-your-face character with defining subtleties to make her your best girlfriend and keeper of your hair color secrets. Tong’s character Annelle does a lot of growing during the play -- from a mousy, afraid, and abandoned newlywed to a newly devout and pregnant Christian. Tong’s acting is seamless in her transitions and never off-putting, despite being a little out of step with the rest of the sisterhood. Danca’s Shelby is the model of modern southern womanhood. It is a role that requires some measure of flippantness paired with a self-awareness of what is really important to her. Danca moves her character through mother-daughter conflicts, life-and-death defining moments, and a reactionary short haircut with the grace and confidence of a much more seasoned performer.
Bushway and Edward’s characters Ouiser and Clairee are probably two of the most loveable and sometimes insufferable women to come to life on the stage. There is no better moment in excellent acting than when Clairee volunteers Ouiser to be a punching bag during the play’s most heart-wrenching scene. It is one of those moments when you hear both sobs and chokes of laughter at the same time in the audience. I salute both Bushway and Edwards for keeping it real.
And then there is M’Lynn, mother of the bride, holder of her tongue, wife in a stale marriage, and kidney donor. Penny’s ability to say less to say more is only outperformed by her delivery of her plea to God in the play’s climatic final scene. It is no easy task to take center stage so utterly defeated by life and yet retain the dignity of Southern womanhood. Penny, you brought down the house.
Anne Hering is the director of this mighty fine version of Steel Magnolias, which was originally written by Robert Harling and first produced in 1987. It is based in part on Harling’s sister, who died in 1985 from Type 1 diabetes complications. In 1989, the story went to the big screen with an all-star cast of Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, and Julia Roberts.
No family reunion held in Dixie is complete without laughter and tears and mothers and daughters and best friends that we consider family. And no Southern family is complete without strong women to carry us through the good and the bad. Flat Rock Playhouse’s production of Steel Magnolias is a reminder to us all of why and how we Southerners love each other.
