'Steel Magnolias' delivers with funny, poignant start to STAGES St. Louis 2024 season (2024)

Play: “Steel Magnolias”

Company: STAGES St. Louis

Venue: Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., Kirkwood

Dates: Through June 30

Story: Truvy’s Salon is the place to go to have your hair styled in Chinquapin, Louisiana. On Saturday mornings, Truvy opens her business specifically for a loyal clientele which includes well-to-do Clairee, widow of the town’s longtime mayor and a staunch fan of the local high school football team; M’Lynn, whose husband, Drum, is in a continuous battle with neighbor Ouiser because the latter’s dog barks incessantly when Drum shoots off his firearms; and Shelby, M’Lynn and Drum’s diabetic daughter, soon to be married.

Truvy has recently added to her staff a shy young woman new to town named Annelle, who is helping Truvy cater to her chosen clientele at these Saturday sessions. While the ladies catch up on what each is doing and welcome quiet Annelle to their group, we learn that Shelby is getting married that afternoon to her fiancé, Jackson. Shelby has faith that Jackson will find the type of employment that can take care of his family as Drum always has for M’Lynn, Shelby and Shelby’s twin brothers.

While everyone is joyful about the news of the wedding, M’Lynn is apprehensive about Shelby’s desire to start her own family. The latter is severely diabetic and has been advised against childbearing by her physicians. Despite these admonitions, Shelby is determined to become a mother, and prefers giving birth rather than adoption.

Ouiser interrogates Annelle about her background, who, after trying to avoid any direct answers, confesses that her husband has deserted her, she's in trouble with the law and she may not even be legally married. Truvy assures Annelle that she can stay with her while Annelle attempts to sort out her sundry personal problems.

As months pass, the women are thrilled to learn that Shelby is pregnant. All of them, that is, except M’Lynn, who is worried about the pregnancy’s repercussions on her diabetic daughter. After Shelby delivers Jackson Jr., all seems well for a while.

But will Shelby’s happiness last? One point is certain: The ladies at Truvy’s Salon have her back. They’re a loyal, close-knit clan, a family of caring, community citizens in the town of Chinquapin, Louisiana.

Highlights: STAGESSt. Louis opens its 38^th season with a splendidly acted and directed production of playwright Robert Harling’s heartwarming, poignant and very funny story based on his own experiences.

Other info: Paige Price, who has performed on Broadway in the original casts of “Smokey Joe’s Café,” “Saturday Night Fever” and “Beauty and the Beast,” makes an impressive debut for STAGES as the director of “Steel Magnolias.” Following last year’s critical and box office success of “Clue,” this marks the second non-musical show to be performed by STAGES at its home in the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center.

Price’s winning cast performs on an impressive set designed by Kate Rance, which fills the stage with accoutrements for a salon and looks realistic enough for the dynamic cast to freshen up should any need an in-performance adjustment (they don’t). Lighting designer Sean Savoie illuminates it with well chosen, subtle variations in intensity.

Tony Award-winning sound designer Nevin Steinberg adds background shotgun effects as well as soothing musical sounds emanating from Truvy’s period radio. The dulcet tones of Tony Award-winning producer Kurt Deutsch pipe through, as his voice effectively serves as DJ at the local radio station that Clairee purchased just because she could.

Add the elegant finery adorning Clairee and M’Lynn (courtesy of costume designer Brad Musgrove), Shelby’s penchant for pink and Truvy’s flamboyant attire, plus the array of mismatched outfits favored by Annelle, and the appealing and reminiscent look of this “Steel Magnolias" is complete. Props artisan Adriana Ayala also contributes with such amusing touches as Annelle’s Christmas covering for her clientele, and dialect coach Pamela Reckamp works with the cast to master their Southern twangs.

Price maintains an agreeable pace in the two-act piece, eliciting delightful performances from her sextet of proven performers. The group includes mainstay STAGES stalwarts and audience favorites Zoe Vonder Haar as the glib Ouiser, who states, “I’m not crazy, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years;" and Kari Ely as the patrician Clairee, who is quick with a retort, asking the usually grumpy Ouiser on one occasion, “Ouiser, you’re so cheerful this morning. Have you run over a small child or something?”

Veteran area performer Amy Loui makes her most impressive STAGES debut as the loving and concerned M’Lynn, who admires her daughter’s independence as much as she frets about its consequences. Newcomer Taylor Quick is very good in the role of the effervescent Shelby, eager to please everyone while also being true to herself.

Jilanne Marie Klaus does well as agreeable proprietor Truvy, whose salon provides a haven for the women’s concerns, and she proves a fine audience for their various jokes and good-humored affection toward each other. Abigail Isom, who made her professional debut at STAGES in 2006 as Tootie in “Meet Me in St. Louis,” makes a triumphant return to its venue as the awkward Annelle, who ‘finds’ herself in a Fundamental Christian church while using the garage apartment at Truvy’s home for her own personal sanctuary.

Harling was inspired to write “Steel Magnolias” as a way of expressing his sorrow at his own sister’s death at a young age. Audiences worldwide, for both the play and the 1988 film version as well as other adaptations, are the fortunate recipients of his affecting and life-affirming literary gift, as evidenced by STAGES’ splendid and affecting version.

Photos by Phillip Hamer Photography, courtesy of STAGES St. Louis