STEEL MAGNOLIAS

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.

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

21.09.2015

for The Public Reviews

Robert Harling's classic tragicomedy, set in a Southern “beauty shop”, is cleverly constructed for maximum effect. Joy and despair, tears and laughter, with the one-liners, ripostes and put-downs equitably shared amongst the six ladies.

The Queen's do it proud. There's “pink plonk” for the interval, or an exclusive Pink Magnolia cocktail, and, on opening night at least, five dancers in jeans and check shirts for the wedding of Shelby and Jackson.

A superb stage design too [Dinah England], with a magnificent magnolia tree beyond the salon – see its petals fall, replaced by fairy lights as April turns to December. There's a practical pink basin, a proper hood dryer, a chicken door-stop and plastic bug blinds rippling in the breeze.

Liz Marsh's production manages the moods and keeps the pace lively. Some effective grouping, too, with the five ladies turning their curiosity onto newbie Annelle, or gathering eagerly round the baby photo. Or M'Lynn sitting quietly apart as the news of her selfless devotion to her daughter breaks. The salon falls still as Shelby's final struggle is recalled, before Clairee breaks the mood with a desperate joke.

Truvy's is as much a community support group as a hairdresser's, and the sense of strong, caring women coping with all that life throws at them is at the heart of the production.

Six excellent actors inhabit their roles: Queen's regular Sarah Mahony is Truvy, with bold eye-shadow and a restless energy, Lucy Wells her prayerful new apprentice. Shelby's warm, bubbly personality is beautifully suggested by Gemma Salter's nuanced performance; Claire Storey, as her mother, encompasses a huge emotional range, fussing and fretting at the beginning, raging at the unfairness of fate at the end. Their heart-to-heart in the gloom is the poignant turning point of the drama.

The two older ladies are nicely contrasted – Gilian Cally's wiry Ouiser, ankle socks and galoshes, and Clairee, former first lady of the town, glossily groomed, with racy red shoes. She's played to perfection by Tina Gray, who first appeared at the Queen's in 1971. Her every laugh is immaculately timed, her every word clearly audible. Elsewhere the accents – impressively authentic – and the wide stage meant that some lines were lost.

A lively, warm-hearted version of a favourite play, firmly set in “too colourful for words” 1980s Louisiana, but universal in its sympathetic portrayal of six remarkable women, sharing the good times and the bad in the humid intimacy of the beauty parlour.

photograph: Mark Sepple

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

Greville Theatre Club at the Barn Theatre

15.05.2015

Robert Harling's bitter-sweet comedy is set in a cosy Chinquapin beauty parlour – all the action, the tragedy and the farce, happens off-stage. The ladies of the neighbourhood use Truvy's as refuge and group therapy, while outside spring turns to winter.

Jonathan Scripps' feel-good production is set in a beautifully realised salon - “luxurious without being sleazy”: lilac paintwork, hood dryers and women's magazines.

Shelby – a spot-on characterization from Sonia Lindsey-Scripps, southern drawl and all – is being titivated for her pink-themed Princess Grace wedding. Her mother [Pam Hemming] fusses, huffs and interferes. Nervous newbie Annelle [warmly characterized by Saira Plane] clearly has a past to hide. Larger than life characters breeze in and out – Ouiser, in a bad mood for forty years, is grumpily played by Lynda Shelverton. Clairee, elegant, big shoulders, big hair, is wonderfully done by Madeline Harmer. Like Marcia Baldry-Bryan's feisty Truvy, she nails the sharp Southern wit and the crisp one-liners – I think it's to do with the eyes … Truvy has some of the best quips, including my favourite, “the nicest thing I can say about her is all her tattoos are spelled correctly”.

On opening night, there was some hesitancy and a few fluffed lines, but, though we weren't always convinced that we were in Louisiana, there was a palpable sense of community and camaraderie amongst these six ladies, well served by excellent ensemble playing. So that when the tear-jerker ending comes, with M'Lynn reliving her “most precious moment” at her daughter's bedside, the wave of shared sympathy embraces the audience, too. As Truvy says, “laughter through tears – my favourite emotion”.

The traditional Greville supper featured apple pie and a superb salmon salad – alas, no dago pie or Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa cake: never mind, here's the recipe, courtesy of http://www.southernfatty.com/

Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Cake

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup flour, self-raising

1 cup sugar (I prefer vanilla sugar!)

1 cup fruit cocktail with the juice

ice cream, to cut the sweetness (optional, but encouraged)

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Mix all ingredients together until well-combined.

Bake in greased pan or skillet until gold and bubbly, about 40-45 minutes.


production photograph: Adrian Hoodless

STEEL MAGNOLIAS


Chelmsford Theatre Workshop at The Old Court
09.04.10


We hear the hairspray first – the background hiss to the 80s, era of shoulder pads and huge hair.


Robert Harling's heart-felt comedy is set in “women's territory”: Truvy's beauty shop in deepest Louisiana. There, the “ladies of the neighborhood” gather to share secrets and offer support.


The play is an entertaining cocktail of issues and one-liners. The six characters are well observed, and each was given a near-perfect performance by the CTW team.


Rebecca Errington's gauche trainee was a wonderful comedy creation, hyperventilating, doing good hair, getting religion and hilariously mangling the already ripe Southern vowels. Clairee – “too twisted for color tv” - was Sarah Bell, and Naomi Phillips held the stage magnificently as the proprietrix of the little salon.


Shelby, whose diabetes gives the piece its pathos, was touchingly done by Emma Moriaty; her possessive, protective mother was beautifully played by Sally Ransom, who took the audience with her as her emotions veered from despair, to determination to searing rage.


Christine Davidson had some of the best lines as Miss Ouiser, the mad old bat who's been in a bad mood for forty years, but reveals her caring side when tragedy strikes.


Jenny Almond and Catherine Kenton gave us a polished production, which brought out the best in this play, all set in a convincing salon, with a practical basin and a fourth wall covered in “reflective surfaces”.


photograph by Sally Jane Ransom: Christine Davidson [or is that Meryl Streep?]  Rebecca Errington, Naomi Phillips, Sarah Bell


Jim Hutchon's review for the Chelmsford Weekly News:


CTW’s production of the gossip-ridden beauty parlour has a highly-developed sense of time and place, and is a superb recreation of the comfort-zone women inhabit when together in confidence. Directed by Jenny Almond and Catherine Kenton, the parlour is presided over by an authoritative and kindly Naomi Phillips, playing the owner Truvy. The two richest inhabitants of the town, Clairee and Ouiser – played respectively by Sarah Bell and Christine Davidson – act up their confidences and insecurities with bravado and understanding and provide width and depth to an otherwise paper-thin narrative.
The narrative is pure 19th Century melodrama, where Emma Moriaty, in a sensitive and brave performance as Shelby, is a vulnerable Type 1 diabetic seen first preparing for her wedding, then unwisely becoming pregnant against medical advice and subsequently expiring from kidney failure.
The accents, on the whole, are believable Southern drawl, with the exception of the strangled tones of Rebecca Errington, the assistant hairdresser, whose accent is from no part of the US that I have visited, but who is such a natural comic that I laughed anyway. Principal acting plaudits must go to newcomer Sally Ransom, as the tragic mother of Shelby, whose quiet dignity developed through the play. Her burst of anger left the audience stunned, and will remain with me for a long time.
The men have a uniformly bleak press and never appear on stage. One is only intent on shooting things, another is on the run from the law and the new husband can’t cope with his wife’s illness in hospital and makes a run for it. Although possibly past its sell-by date as a feminist icon, this is a funny, sad and touching play which repays the attention the audience give it.
It is running for a second week from 14th– 17th April. Box Office is 01245 606505.