Steel Magnolias Bloom in Macedon

Steel Magnolias Bloom in Macedon

Macedon’s The Mount Players Theatre Company (Vic) will stage the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias by American playwright Robert Harling from Friday August 25.

Harling wrote the script in the mid-1980s as a way of coping with the loss of his younger sister Susan, who died from complications of diabetes. He placed his story’s emphasis firmly on the love, humour and support of friends and family, through both happy times and when faced with tragedy.

The play was first produced off-Broadway in 1987 and the popular film made two years later with a Hollywood A-List cast of Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah, with Julia Roberts gaining an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie, the ill-fated character Harling based upon his sister.

Steel Magnolias has become a hugely popular stage production worldwide, and has been translated into 17 languages. It finally made its Broadway debut in 2005.

The two-act play, set in the mid 1980s in a small town in Harling’s native central Louisiana, is staged on a single set, ‘Truvy’s Beauty Shop’. It covers two and a half years of laughter, friendship, loss and renewal in a time of big hair and bright pastel everything else.

In The Mount Players’ production, Truvy is played by Sonja Prater, last seen on stage as Amandain Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the end of last year. Truvy’s young assistant Annelle is played by Mount Players Youth Theatre member, Ebony Beaton. Shelby is played by Marianne McLoughlin, who returns to The Mount Players for the first time since her turn as “basket case” Allison in 2010’s The Breakfast Club, and Clairee is played by Julie Wade, last seen by local audiences as widow Theresa, determined to enjoy an unlikely love in 2008’s Irish drama Remembrance. Shelby’s mother M’Lynn and grumpy neighbour Ouiser are played by newcomers to The Mount Players, respectively Erin Hewlett and Maree Hingston.

Steel Magnolias is this year’s Victorian Drama League Awards entry for The Mount Players. It is being directed by Natasha Boyd, whose other directing credits for the company include Stones in His Pockets at the start of this year and God of Carnage in 2011.

“Everyone knows and loves the film,” Ms Boyd, “however, it has been important for us all to put our own stamp on this, because there are changes from the film to the play’s script, the main one being that the stage show is an ensemble piece for six actresses, with no males. I think everyone will agree when they see it, how fun and moving our interpretation is. It certainly has created a lot of laughs and some tears amongst the cast and crew as we’ve rehearsed it.”

Steel Magnolias opens at the Mountview Theatre (56 Smith Street, Macedon) on Friday 23rd August and runs over four weekends until Saturday 14th September. Tickets are $25 and are available through the Box Office on 1300 463 224or via www.themountplayers.com. Discounts are offered for pensioners and group bookings of ten or more.

Photogrpher: Bruce Hedge.

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