It’s Saturday at Truvy’s Beauty Spot in Chinquapin, Louisiana, which means her customers are gathering to get their hair done and to gripe and gossip about the men in their lives. It’s also Shelby’s wedding day, so she and her mother, M’Lynn, are there to get ready for the festivities.
Thus begins the emotional rollercoaster ride of laughter and tears that is Robert Harling’s play “Steel Magnolias,” Penobscot Theatre Company’s delightful season opener playing at the Bangor Opera House through Sept. 28.
Harling, who grew up in Louisiana, wrote the play based on his own experience with his sister’s death in 1985, which is reflected in Shelby’s story arc. It premiered off-Broadway in 1987 and ran for nearly three years. The 1989 film starring Sally Fields, Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts and Shirley MacLaine was a hit critically and financially.
Director Sarah Gitenstein, an assistant professor in theatre directing at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, mines from the script every layer of emotion Harling the playwright captures in his all-female cast in the Bangor production. Gitenstein builds a powerful ensemble and uses the Opera House stage to its best advantage.
The cast of six mostly local actresses is one of the best and most veteran to perform in the past decade at Bangor’s only Equity house. PTC first performed “Steel Magnolias” in 1995 and again in 2009.
The play begins as Truvy (Kae Cooney) hires Annelle (Stephanie Colavito) to work in her shop, located in her converted garage. M’Lynn (Jenny Hart) and Shelby (Cameron Long) soon arrive with neighbors Clairee (Jeri Misler) and Ouiser (Alison Cox) close on their heels. The story, full of joy and tragedy, unfolds from there.
Hart has a well deserved reputation for portraying bad mothers in the dramas “Hockey Mom” and “Clarkston” at the Opera House. She showed off her comedic skills two years ago in that season’s opener, “Crimes of the Heart,” as the nosy, judgmental neighbor Chick.
M’Lynn is the heart of “Steel Magnolias” and Hart wears it well. She takes the audience on a journey no parent wants to take as her diabetic daughter begins her life as a wife and risks her life to become a mother herself. Hart is heartbreaking in the final scene and makes every audience member feel M’Lynn’s pain. It is a performance that will be seared into the memories of theatergoers for a long, long time.
Long, a New York City-based actress, brings the determined Shelby to life with a stubborn charm and the invincibility of youth. She believably and delightfully portrays the young woman’s optimism despite the hand that she’s been dealt concerning her health.
Cooney and Colavito work beautifully together as they wash and set their fellow actresses’ hair onstage while spouting dialogue. Cox and Misler, who played different characters in the 2009 production, are equally fine as the curmudgeon Ouiser and the cheerful widow Clairee.
The technical work on this show is first rate with the set design by Daniel Bilodeau, costume design by Alexis Foster, both of the University of Maine Division of Theatre and Dance, lighting design by Toni Sterling of Atlanta and Sound Design by Charlotte Laffely, Husson University student. Their work sets the show squarely in the mid-1980s when the hair was poofy, hair spray was liberally applied and polyester ruled the fashion world.
“Right now, I believe that our audiences need joy, love, heart and laughter,” newly appointed Artistic Director Jen Shepard said in her program notes. “Steel Magnolias” delivers that in spades along with a few tears. This is an auspicious start to the company’s 52nd season.
Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of “Steel Magnolias” runs through Sept. 28 at the Bangor Opera House, 131 Broadway. For more information, visit penobscottheatre.org or call 207-942-3333.
