If author Robert Harling weren’t so dead-set on making jokes every few moments, Steel Magnolias might be taken as a serious exploration of the ways in which human beings find sustenance in the artificial families they create. The denizens of Truvy’s Beauty Shop in Chinquapin, La., aren’t just acquaintances; they’re also supporters, encouragers, moral guides and partners in suffering.
In American Stage’s polished version of the play — with an all-African-American cast — the six women who regularly meet at the beauty shop are able to offer one another a love that, if occasionally judgmental, is at least free of the rivalry, selfishness, and neurosis that can make real family life arduous. But then there are those incessant jokes — unnecessary, unrevealing, the device of a playwright who doesn’t trust his play’s inspiration or his audience’s patience. With every superfluous one-liner, Steel Magnolias denies its own importance. The result is a sitcom that only in its last moments rises to the level of sincere drama.
That’s a pity, because Harling shows himself in the last 20 minutes of Act Two to be capable of writing powerful dialogue. That’s when one of the characters’ lives is in question, and the friends rally round with a solicitude born of genuine affection. Prior to this, we’ve been introduced to six women who don’t do very much more than gossip and make wisecracks. There’s Truvy, the sensible beauty shop owner; Annelle, the new hire who’s attracted to religion; Clairee the sports fanatic; Shelby the about-to-be-married; M’lynn, Shelby’s wise mother; and Ouiser, the tough cynic.
Insofar as there’s a plot, it concerns Shelby’s upcoming marriage and the question of whether the young diabetic woman can have children naturally. But mostly the women just sit and chat, get their hair done, razz each other a little, and, in Annelle’s case, pray. We can be forgiven for assuming at intermission that the next act will be similarly static.
It’s not — and the key is the one event in Act One that was so serious, it seemed out of place: Shelby’s attack of diabetic shock. This harrowing occurrence, during which the character begins to shake uncontrollably, is successfully handled by the women at the beauty shop, and the comedy’s silliness resumes. But soon we learn that Shelby’s doctor has warned her not to get pregnant, not only for the baby’s sake but for her own. This will lead in Act Two to some striking dramatic problems, challenges so critically urgent that they change our whole experience of the play. By its end, Steel Magnolias is a powerful, even heart-rending act of theater.
Certainly it doesn’t lack for top actors. Perri Gaffney as Ouiser offers an almost perfect impersonation of a strong, idiosyncratic female whose unflappable self-assurance wins her the respect of the other women but also places her in a solitude that can’t be entirely comfortable. Brandy Grant as Annelle is just about her opposite: naïve, somewhat confused, she’s just been deserted by her husband when we first meet her, but soon enough finds religion and then another man. Whitney Drake as Shelby at first seems nothing but an airhead, but as she navigates her diabetes and the dangerous pregnancy and its outcome, she takes on a certain heroism and even a bit of grandeur. As her mother M’Lynn, Fanni Green is, at the start, just another jokester; by the end of the play, she delivers an emotional performance that had some theatergoers in tears. Then there’s Tia Jemison’s performance as Truvy, the beauty shop owner whose logical mind and good humor make all the others feel welcome. And finally, Erica Sutherland as sports-lover Clairee is an ingratiating image of a woman who delights in the others’ company and has no problem of self-image. Bob Devin Jones directs with his usual flair, and Greg Bierce’s set of the beauty shop is attractively realistic. The widely various costumes are designed by Sarah Stark.
I wish I could say that the last minutes of Steel Magnolias redeem what comes before. I can’t: The show is 80 percent fluff before its transformation, and that’s far too much to be forgotten, whatever the ending offers. But I will insist that if you’re willing to sit through some silly, inconsequential theater, you will get to some minutes that shine with their honesty (and the talent of the actors). Better something than nothing.
This article appears in May 22-28, 2014.