STEEL
MAGNOLIAS
Writtle Cards at the
Village Hall
19.05.2016
Another
appointment at Miss Truvy's Louisiana beauty shop, nicely tricked out
in Writtle Cards' production, with a credible logo, beauty
paraphernalia courtesy of Mack Hairdressers, and pink gingham tabards
for the entire staff: Deb Sparshott's charming proprietress, a
performance oozing
period style, and new girl Annelle [Leila Francis] who loses her way
and finds religion.
The
Southern drawl was mostly very convincing, at least to a Limey ear;
most successful
were Truvy herself, and Louise Burtenshaw's sassy Shelby – one of
the best I've seen, taking us with her on her emotional journey from
her “blush and bashful” wedding through her rite of passage crop
to her final exit.
She's
absent, of course, from the closing scene – black clad,
accessorized in pink – in which her distraught mother M'Lynn [a
lovely performance from Sharon Goodwin] makes a heart-breaking big
speech, movingly supported by
the listening faces of the four ladies in the salon.
The
one-liners are largely in the safe hands of Jean Speller's grumpy
Ouiser and Paulette Harris's superb smart-mouthed
recipe
queen Clairee, resplendent in her Victoria-plum velours, harvesting
the laughs with a knowing glance and a nifty inflection.
Slim
Whitman and Jimmy Dean on Shelby's transistor radio, and Patsy
Cline's That Wonderful Someone for the Chinquapin baptists. Steel
Magnolias was produced by Daniel Curley, with Liz Curley in the
director's chair.
3 comments:
I thoroughly enjoyed the play, especially as I hadn't seen the film and didn't know the story.
I thoroughly enjoyed the play, especially as I hadn't seen the film and didn't know the story.
I thoroughly enjoyed it - especially as I hadn't seen the film so didn't know the story.
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