REVIEW: York Stage in Steel Magnolias at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York

Joanne Theaker as M’Lynn in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias. All pictures: Kirkpatrick Photography

REVIEW: Steel Magnolias, York Stage, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorkstagemusicals.com

NOTE the shedding of “Musicals” from the York Stage name for this Nik Briggs production, although music from the Eighties still blares out from the radio at Truvy’s Beauty Spot, whenever it is tapped.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun, sings Cyndi Lauper, and the girls on stage want to have fun too, but the cycle of life has a habit of getting in the way.

Indeed just such a spanner in the works led to Louisiana playwright Robert Harling writing Steel Magnolias in 1987 as therapy after losing his sister to diabetes.

Louise Henry as Shelby in Steel Magnolias

Once billed as “the funniest play ever to make you cry”, it takes the form of a bittersweet but sentimental comedy drama, delivered by an all-female cast.

Briggs assembles a fine array of York talent, all of whom have excelled in musicals previously and are now showing off their acting chops to the max, without recourse to the heightened dramatics of song.

Briggs and set builder Geoff Theaker have gone for a traverse stage design, a configuration that is under-utilised in theatre, but makes you aware of the audience reactions on the opposite side, and also has a way of intensifying drama in a story of triumph and tragedy, dyeing and dying.

Steel Magnolias’ setting is a bustling Louisiana hair salon, run by the ever-comforting Truvy (Kathryn Addison) in a converted garage, home to her little rural Southern town’s most successful shop for 15 years.

Julie Ann Smith as Ouiser in Steel Magnolias

Pictures of the Eighties’ American hairstyles du jour are omnipresent, raising a smile of familiarity that is repeated with the assortment of hair-dos favoured by the women we meet. Bunting criss-crosses the salon, while magnolias tumble down the walls.

Significantly, men are never seen – and there were only four among the first-night full house – but they are often disparaged in conversation, one of the sources of humour in Harling’s script. What’s more, they are represented by the loud, intrusive blasts of a bird-scaring gun and the barking of big dogs. Enough said!

If the men are but a nuisance, the women seek comfort in each other, and where better to do that than in the haven of a salon as nails are painted and hair teased into pleasing shape.

At the epicentre is Addison’s perennially perky Truvy, whose mantra of “There’s no such thing as natural beauty” is passed on straightaway to quirky new asssistant Annelle (Carly Morton), whose God-fearing demeanour is coupled with mystery over her past.

Carly Morton’s Annelle and Louise Henry’s Shelby in Steel Magnolias

One effervescent, the other quiet, together they must orchestrate the ever-hastening wedding-day preparations of plucky, resolute but physically fragile Shelby (Louise Henry), whose love of fashion and pink in profusion are emblems of her not giving in to diabetes.

She and her mother, the cautious but forceful matriarch M’Lynn (Joanne Theaker), do not have the easiest of relationships but their love is nevertheless unconditional.

The salon’s endless circle of gossip is joined regularly by the wise, good-humoured, football club-owning widow Clairee (a phlegmatic Sandy Nicholson) and the grouchy, erratic loose cannon Ouiser (Julie Ann Smith, with just the right dash of eccentricity).

Briggs’s direction is both well choreographed and well paced, with plenty of movement to counter all that sitting down in salons, as Harling’s tissue-box drama of marriage and motherhood, love and loss unfolds.

The never-easy Southern drawl is mastered by one and all in Briggs’s excellent cast, who are equally strong as an ensemble and in the solo spotlight. Theaker is particularly good, especially when M’Lynn is in the grip of grief, while Henry, last seen as Snow White in her professional debut in the Grand Opera House pantomime, is fast becoming one to watch with an admirable range already at 22.

Carly Morton’s Annelle, left, Sandy Nicholson’s Clairee, Kathryn Addison’s Truvy and Louise Henry’s Shelby
in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias

Charles Hutchinson

Six of the best to star in York Stage’s comedy drama Steel Magnolias

“Strong women”: Joanne Theaker, front left, Louise Henry, back left, Sandy Nicholson, Julie-Anne Smith and Kathryn Addison starring in Nik Briggs’s production of Steel Magnolias for York Stage

YORK Stage kick off their 2020 season with Robert Harling’s comedy-drama Steel Magnolias at Theatre @41 Monkgate, York.

Running in the John Cooper Studio from February 19 to 22, this 1987 American play focuses on the camaraderie of six Southern women who talk, gossip, jest and harangue each other through the best of times and comfort and repair one another through the worst.

“Steel Magnolias is alternately hilarious and touching with six female characters that are all as delicate as magnolias yet as strong as steel,” says director Nik Briggs.

Joanne Theaker, Louise Henry, Sandy Nicholson and Julie-Anne Smith in York Stage’s Steel Magnolias

His cast comprises Joanne Theaker as M’Lynn; Louise Henry as Shelby; Julie-Anne Smith as Ousier; Sandy Nicholson as Clairee; Kathryn Addision as Truvy and Carly Morton as Annelle.

Yorkshire actress Joanne Theaker returns to the York Stage company, having led the cast as Maria in The Sound Of Music at the Grand Opera House last April.

Previously, Joanne has played Sister Mary Roberts in Sister Act; Diva in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert – The Musical; Judy in Dolly Parton’s 9 To 5 The Musical and Paulette in Legally Blonde. Elsewhere, she has performed at Hull Truck Theatre in the original casts of John Godber’s Thick As a Brick and Big Trouble In The Little Bedroom and at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in Neil Simon’s They’re Playing Our Song.

Julie-Anne Smith and Sandy Nicholson have a laugh in the photo-shoot for Steel Magnolias

Louise Henry joins rehearsals after making her professional debut as Snow White in this winter’s Grand Opera House pantomime, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Previously, for York Stage Musicals, she had performed in The Sound Of Music as Liesl last April and Twilight Robbery as Jayne in May. West End actress Julie-Anne Smith last appeared for York Stage Musicals as Violet in 9 To 5 in 2017.

Briggs says: “Bringing Steel Magnolias to the stage, and working with these six women especially, has been a joy. It’s no secret that I love working with strong women, especially in the rehearsal room and you don’t get much stronger than these six.

”Having previously directed many female-led shows – Sister Act, Legally Blonde, 9 To 5, The Sound Of Music, Be My Baby and Little Voice – Steel Magnolias has been on my ‘To Do’ list for a long time.”

Hair-larious: Louise Henry and Joanne Theaker

The women’s closeness drew Briggs to Harling’s piece. “It’s relatable, the salon is a world in itself and the six characters are an adopted family,” he says. “They laugh, cry, argue, support and challenge each other within this world and it really allows for the drama and comedy to flourish and soar.

“We’ve had tears of laughter and tears of sadness over the rehearsal period. This really is a show to see with your closest girl friends and family. Come, laugh and cry together, and if you want to wear pyjamas and bring a large carton of ice cream with you for the ultimate girly ‘night in-out’, we won’t judge!”

Harling was inspired to write Steel Magnolias, his first play, after his sister Susan died of complications from diabetes. Premiered off-Broadway at the WPA Theater in 1987, it quickly transferred to Broadway, where it became an instant sensation, running for three years and spawning the hit movie starring Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts, Sally Field, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine.

Hair piece: York Stage’s poster image for Steel Magnolias

York Stage in Steel Magnolias, John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, February 19 to 22, 7:30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Tickets: £15, concessions £13, at yorkstagemusicals.com, on 01904 623568 or in person from the York Theatre Royal box office. “We shall be supporting York and District Diabetes UK Group throughout the run,” says director Nik Briggs.