Review - Steel Magnolias

Steel Magnolias

By Robert Harling

Directed by Natasha Boyd

Cast:

Truvy Jones – Sonja Prater

Annelle Dupuy-Desoto – Ebony Beaton

Clairee Belcher – Julie Wade

Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie – Marianne McLoughlin

M’Lynn Eatenton – Errin Hewlett

Ouiser Boudreaux – Maree Hingston

Mountview Theatre Macedon

August – September 2013

Steel Magnolias a skillfully written work by Robert Harling will make you laugh and make you cry in this beautifully handled production by the great team of theatre makers that constitutes The Mount Players.  

On a practical and purposeful set (Alison Dudon) of a hairdresser’s salon in dusky pinks and greens, many social pretenses are dropped and a tender, moving story of women’s loyal and loving friendships is played out to significant cathartic effect.

This is an exemplary amateur theatre production with Director Natasha Boyd eliciting beautiful work from her talented troupe actors.  Ms. Boyd displays a fine eye for detail in her staging and complex management of stage business.  The actor’s placement on the stage is consistently comfortable and appropriate to the action at all times.

The acting is dependably good.  Sonja Prater energetically leads a great cast of skilled actors who are able wholly don their character’s 1980s Southern American personalities and accents.

Julie Wade works well with the character of Clariee Belcher, often watching from the edge and then endowing her friends with a sagacious pearls of wisdom. 

Ebony Beaton makes a delightful young apprentice Annelle Dupuy-Desoto.  She very convincingly gets about doing all the things an apprentice does and travels quite some complex character journey throughout the evening.

Errin Hewlett as M’Lynn Eatenton puts in an especially moving performance in her expression of aching sadness, distress and anger. In this production the successful staging of this pivotal moment in the play is due to the believability of the enduring relationships between characters that have been so well fleshed out by all six actors.

M’Lynn’s daughter Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie is interpreted with just the right touch of vulnerability by Marianne McLoughlin.

The character of Ouiser Boudreaux as played by Maree Hingston is lively and insightful and a great comic foil.

As the season goes on all actors will comfortably afford to allow their characters to further grow and develop from this very sound start into a production that is pacey, detailed and truly flies.

The word around the traps is that the bookings are extremely heavy so it may be difficult to find seats but certainly try not to miss out.  Mount Players have a website and a 1300 number for bookings.

(For Stage Whispers)

Review: Art - Mount Players - Macedon

Art by Yasmina Reza. Directed by Christina Finch. Cast: Marc – Andrew Blizzard, Serge – Adrian Munro and Yvan – Richard Barley. Presented by Mount Players.

Art is an intriguing play about the joys, frustrations and petty betrayals of friendship as experienced in this ever changing contemporary life, and dare I say, post-modern world. It could be likened to an extend episode of a French version of Seinfeld.
 

Through the perceptive, intelligent direction of Christina Finch, Yasmina Reza’s deftly-crafted award-winning play shines as a fascinating examination of checks and balances of friendship.

It is the story of three men who have maintained reliable, affirming and psychologically intimate relationships with each other, over a period of fifteen years. Then, ostensibly provoked by a seemingly out of character action – the purchase of an outrageously expensive painting by one of the trio – comfortable co-dependent relationships begin to flounder. We watch three men metaphorically stumble around, miscommunicating with wearisome disdain – where there was once the delight of reinforcing recognition.
 

This play has universal appeal in its exploration of the difficulties of maintaining positive connections and the disappointments of being taken for granted or misunderstood - as something we all experience. And curiously, the anxieties and discomfort suffered, are particularly vividly ‘thrown into relief’, by being embodied by males endowed with, perhaps unusually, heightened capacities for introspection.

Each of the characters is clearly drawn and convincingly interpreted by the actors. Ivan (Richard Barley) is a lively comic character with quick rhythms who is painfully keen to please. Andrew Blizzard’s Marc is a stolid presence with a hint of danger about him.  The extravagant yet ultimately reconciling Serge as played by Adrian Munro also serves the text well.

In support of her striking ‘less is more’ staging Ms. Finch has developed an arrangement of the traditional round ‘Three Blind Mice’ and composed some lively, aptly fusing incidental music for scene changes – delightful touches.

‘Are you who you think you are or are you who your friends think you are’?  A pertinent question posed by Faber for the publication of the script.
 

A thought provoking and memorable production.
 

Suzanne Sandow 

(For Stage Whispers)

Pictured: Adrian Munro as Serge (in white shirt), Andrew Blizzard as Marc (in red shirt) and Richard Barley as Yvan (in blue shirt).