The Devils Amongst Us

The Crucible -- Connecticut Repertory Theatre -- Thru March 4

Cast of "The Crucible." Photo by Gerry Goodstein

                It may seem disturbing to some (perhaps many) that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is as relevant today as it was back in 1953 when it debuted at New York’s Martin Beck Theatre. It’s no secret that Miller wrote the allegorical play in response to the “witch hunt” that was riveting and the nation as the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and other self-righteous committees and organizations sought to rid the country of Communists and all those who travelled along with them – or had just had dinner with them. Loosely based on the Salem witch trials of 1692/93, the play is receiving a strong and perceptive revival at UCONN’s Connecticut Repertory Theater in Storrs, all the more so since most of the actors are UCONN students in the university’s theater arts program. Their participation cannot help but be a visceral civics lesson that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

                The story is familiar to most people: a group of young women, perhaps repressed by the Puritan society in which they live, sow a few wild oats by gathering in the woods and dancing, stimulated by the stories told to them by Tituba (Angela Hunt), a Barbadian servant. They are discovered by the local minister, Reverend Parris (Rob Barnes) and, to justify their actions, claim that they have been influenced by the Devil. The girls’ lies and subterfuge soon extends to them having fits and weird sightings that, they claim, have been brought upon them by those in the community who consort with the Devil. Thus, a witch hunt ensues with a tribunal made up of such worthies as Judge Danforth (a very effective James Sutorius) and Judge Hawthorne (Nick Nudler), with the Reverend Parris egging them on. The essence of the play is that the Devil has seduced many Salem inhabitants and the sinners are offered two options: confess (to a lie) and be saved or deny the charges and face death by hanging (or being pressed, i.e., having stones placed upon them until they are crushed to death). Of course, with confession comes the demand that those “saved” name names. Soon the jail is filled and the gallows bear the weight of those condemned.

Miller was a wise playwright who understood that assault on ideas, whether they be about social hysteria or the myth of the American Dream (see The Death of a Salesman) would fall on deaf or indifferent ears if the humanity behind and supporting the insanity was not revealed. Hence, we have John Proctor (a tremendously engaging Mauricio Miranda) and his wife, Elizabeth (a very accomplished Erin Cessna, a grad student in UCONN’s Acting MFA program) having to deal with John’s involvement with a servant, Abigail (the striking Rebekah Santiago Berger), who, driven by jealousy, is at the heart of the girls’ hysteria. We also have the Reverend John Hale (Tristan Rewald), a supposed expert in witchcraft and demonology who initially seeks to reveal the Devil’s workings in Salem but soon comes to realize that what is occurring has little to do with the Devil and more to do with human lust, greed and sense of self-importance.

The set, created by Pedro L. Guevera, and costumes by Brittny Mahan, are dominated by shades of brown and black, reflecting the drab and mirthless world in which the young girls are forced to exist, a world their youthful exuberance and burgeoning sexuality revolts against. Lighting, designed by Danielle Verkennes, is significantly subdued, creating a sense that this community is surrounded by darkness, the darkness of the forest where the Devil (and aborigines) lurk. The only way to push back against the darkness is to embrace a rigid belief in God’s word as found in the Bible.

Some critics have written off The Crucible as mere polemic, a thinly veiled ‘leftist’ response to conservative beliefs and “true Americans” desire to defend “truth, justice and the American way of life,” to quote the opening of the Superman TV series. Yet Miller’s play suggests that there are many “truths,” that justice can be perverted and “the American way of life” often embraces xenophobia and a need to attack and destroy what we do not understand.

There’s the cliché referring to tense, rapt attention that involves hearing a pin drop. As with all clichés, there is truth lurking somewhere in the background, and for this cliché it is proven during the pivotal scene in the second act when Judge Danforth, attempting to weigh whether the girls have been lying or are truly beset by demons and devils, brings Elizabeth Proctor into the room to ask her if her husband is “a lecher.” If there was some device, like a Geiger counter, that could measure audience attention and concern, its needle would have been in the red as Elizabeth struggles to answer Danforth’s questions. The power of this moment, and the subsequent scene between husband and wife, with Proctor’s life hanging in the balance, is what draws us to the theater, for it is in these scenes, so well-acted and deftly directed, that we experience emotions that cannot be generated by other media. Yes, we suspend our disbelief and accept that what we are seeing is real…and riveting…and important.

CRT’s production of The Crucible is more than worthy of a trek up to Storrs. You may, initially, be aware you are watching a play but, very soon, you are drawn into the lives being portrayed on the stage. That is the magic of theater, and the magic – and the message inherent in this play – is something that we need now more than ever.

The Crucible runs through March 4. For tickets or more information call 860-486-2113 or go to www.crt.uconn.edu.

All Aboard

Murder on the Orient Express -- Hartford Stage -- Thru March 25

David Pittu as Hercule Poirot. Photo by T. Charles Erickson
 

                Whodunnit?

                Well, if you’ve read the Agatha Christie novel, or seen the 1974 Sidney Lumet film adaptation or the 2017 Kenneth Branagh re-make, you know damn well “whodunit.” Which leads to the question: why spend two hours watching the Ken Ludwig theatrical adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express that recently opened at Hartford Stage under the direction of Emily Mann? After all, we work our way through mystery novels, by and large, to have the solution to the crime revealed; it’s why we accept pages of exposition and multiple red herrings. If we already know said solution, what’s the point? The answer to the question with regards to this current production is up for grabs.

                Could it be production values? Buy a ticket just to see how scenic designer Beowulf Boritt creates the fabled choo-choo on stage? Yes, that’s intriguing, and Boritt delivers using a sliding stage and horizontal-closing curtain to create the aura of the Orient Express and its movement. First reveal of the elegant coach and dining area garnered well-deserved applause. But then what?

                The plot is a variation on the locked-room murder mystery – in this case the locked room is a train stranded and immobile because of a snow storm. As an audience member who well knew who is responsible for the murder of an American gentleman named Samuel Ratchett (Ian Bedford) on the train, my main interest was in how the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (David Pittu) would be portrayed. As initially written by Christie, Poirot is persnickety and vain, and Pittu conveys both characteristics to a fault – he gives us a peacock strut as he walks and a simmering disdain for all those who are beneath his intellectual ability. In other words, Pittu’s portrayal of Poirot essentially holds together this somewhat uneven production that isn’t sure whether it wants to be melodrama or farce and, hence, falls between the cracks.

                So, back to the question of why attend? Well, there are bright moments to be enjoyed, chief among them is Julie Halston’s snarky portrayal of Helen Hubbard and Veanne Cox’s equally snarky rendering of the aged Princess Dragomiroff. Halston gets to do a true comic-relief scene in which she dances in her stateroom, an extended scene that delights the audience, and Cox rules as the queen (or is that countess?) of the one-liners. Then there’s a nicely blocked scene involving a gun, with the Countess Andrenyi (Leigh Ann Larkin) falling to the floor multiple times to avoid being shot, and the religiously inhibited Greta Ohlsson (Samantha Steinmetz) also falling and cringing in a moment of extreme angst. Enjoyable as all of these are, the delightful parts do not add up to a delightful whole.

                Perhaps if I had done an extended post-show audience interview, searching for people who had had no exposure to the Christie novel or subsequent films, I might have gotten a different perspective on the evening, especially whether the solution to the crime was revelatory and worth the two-plus hours of theater. No such interview was held, so I can only say that most of the evening was akin to leafing through an album of old photographs, nodding in recognition, and remembering the initial interest—excitement—engagement the photos captured. For me, there really was no “Aha!” moment – the same might be true for most of the audience, and if not, then we are left with weighing the value of the material being presented. Yes, we go again and again to productions of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Death of a Salesman and Doubt, knowing full well what will happen, but we are forever captured by the writing, the artful presentation of humanity’s foibles and follies. Murder on the Orient Express worked well as a mystery novel, and both film versions relied heavily on star-power. Alas, though there is fine acting to be seen in Hartford Stage’s production, it does not overcome the ‘been-there-done-that” of the evening. It’s akin to unwrapping a gaily decorated present whose contents you already know – you feign surprise and enjoyment, but you quickly toss the present aside in search of something else – something that will truly surprise and deliver unexpected enjoyment.

Murder on the Orient Express runs through March 25. For tickets or more information call 860-527-5151 or go to www.hartfordtsage.org.

The Threads That Connect

Intimate Apparel -- Playhouse on Park -- Thru March 4

Darlene Hope and Ben MacLaughlin. Photo by Curt Henderson

                Some plays seek to overwhelm, while others seek to seduce. Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel,” is of the latter variety, for if you wrote a plot outline of the play you probably wouldn’t fill half a page, yet in the play’s two-plus hours you are slowly drawn into a world of a fascinating, strong-willed woman who is basically searching for love, albeit in places that, for one reason or another, cannot satisfy. As directed by Dawn Loveland Navarro, this tender, bittersweet play comes beautifully and tenderly alive on Playhouse on Park’s thrust stage with a cast that is just about perfect.

                Sean Harris, one of the Playhouse’s artistic directors, is usually charged with casting POP’s productions, and if he did so in this case he should get a medal, for the six actors on stage just don’t embody their roles, they seem to live and breathe them. Leading the cast as Esther is Darlene Hope, an actor of phenomenal talent who is able to convey emotions with just a cant of her head or a roll of her eyes. She plays a seamstress who has been saving her money, sewn into a bedspread, so she can eventually open a beauty parlor that caters to the needs of black women. She has been living in a boarding house in lower Manhattan(circa 1905) run by Mrs. Dickson (Xenia Gray) for close to two decades, sewing intimate apparel for various uptown ladies, chief among them Mrs. Van Buren (the striking Anna Laura Strider) whose husband has lost interest in her because she can’t conceive.

                Esther often travels to the garment district to buy material, primarily from Mr. Marks (Ben MacLaughlin), a Jewish draper who is engaged to a woman he has never met who still lives in “the old country.” He dresses primarily in black (to honor God, as he explains to Esther) and is constrained from touching a woman by his religion. They are drawn to each other, but their contact is defined by the bolts of cloth he offers her for inspection – he caresses the cloth, she caresses the cloth. In these moments you can almost hear their hearts pounding.

                Given the structure of POP’s stage, scenic design is often a challenge, but Marcus Abbott, who also designed the lighting, gives the audience four distinct arenas: Esther’s room is downstage right; Mr. Mark’s shop is upstage right. Then there’s Mrs. Van Buren’s boudoir, which is downstage left and finally, upstage left, defined by a piano, is where Mayme (Zuri Eshun) plies her trade, a lady of soiled reputation who dreams of being a concert pianist.  Navarro has Esther travel easily and seamlessly from one world to another, although the director has opted to have props removed and placed by a stage hand, which, oddly enough, becomes a bit distracting – the job, not onerous, could easily have been done by the actors themselves during the blackouts and have been less intrusive. Also, an unresolved problem is how to handle the “bedding” scenes early in the second act – the absence of a bed presents certain problems, but they are minor.

                So we have Esther dutifully working towards her goal of opening a beauty parlor until her world is disrupted by George (a slick and tale-weaving Beethoven Oder) a Barbadian laborer working on the Panama Canal who has run across a man from Esther’s church. The man suggests that George write to Esther, which he does. Esther is smitten and disregards Mrs. Dickson’s warnings. Never having seen George, Esther, with all of her restrained passion, falls in love with the idea of love. The first act (which probably could be snipped and cut – it does seem a bit long) ends with George appearing in Manhattan for their wedding.

                The second act, shorter and more intense, has Esther learn some age-old lessons about love, men and friendship. In the hands of less accomplished actors, this might all seem a bit overly melodramatic, but it works. This is much to the credit of Hope, who weaves her character’s transformation from that of a smitten, prim young lady to one who is, albeit heartbroken, wiser and stronger. Hers is a complete, engrossing performance that allows you to see the soul of a woman who rises above the failures and foibles of others, and though the play ends with Esther back where she started, there is no sense that she has been defeated.

                This is a play, and a production, that you have to stay with, that you have to allow to unfold in its own good time. Given that we are often treated to explosions or emotional fireworks erupting every two of three minutes in the films or TV shows we see, we have to be willing to shift gears to appreciate what the folks at POP have created and what Nottage has written. It is delicate and, if we allow it to be, subtly transforming, for we are allowed to enter into the world of a woman we might pass by on the street without giving her a second notice, yet she is a woman with hopes, dreams and passions that make her, in her own way, utterly captivating.

                “Intimate Apparel” runs through March 4. For tickets or more information call 860-523-5900, X10, or go to www.playhouseonpark.org

There's a Bear in My Vodka

Field Guide -- Yale Repertory Theatre -- Thru February 17

The cast of "Field Guide." All photos by Joan Marcus

Theatre of the Absurd may be an outdated term, but its spirit appears to be alive and well at Yale Repertory Theatre, which is currently offering the world premiere of Rude Mechs’ “Field Guide,” a somewhat surreal take on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” The one-act evening has the feel of a graduate seminar on Russian Lit with the students and professor all on LSD. If you’re looking for linear coherence in your theater-going experience, don’t hold your breath as you settle in to watch “Field Guide.” However, if you can go with the flow, or flows, and simply accept, say, a Russian bear doing a stand-up comedy routine, you’re in for an evening directed by Shawn Sides that will surely generate a loft of post-curtain conversation.

Lowell Bartolomee as the Russian Bear.

 

After the delivery of the usual pre-curtain “Do’s and Don’t’s,” (that seems to have been recorded by Kermit the Frog), a door opens house right and six characters, all wearing white parkas, tromp up onto the stage. Five disappear back-stage; the sixth, Hannah Kenan, who will play Grigory and Katya, stands in front of the curtain and begins a stand-up routine. If nothing else, this lets you know that you will be called upon to readjust your expectations, a task you will be charged with throughout the evening.

Kenan exits, the curtain rises, and we are into Dostoevsky land, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. The set, compliments of Eric Dyer, consists of large, tan shapes – mostly rectangular, though there is one shape that looks like a wedge and another that towers above the rest, a wormlike configuration that could have escaped from the pages of “Dune.” Over the course of the evening the set “elements” will often rearrange themselves. Why? That’s open to interpretation, as is much of “Field Guide.”

With the initial reveal of the set we meet Dostoevsky’s main characters: there’s Fyodor (Lowell Bartholomee), the bibulous father, Alyosha (Mari Akita), consumed by spiritual rapture (the character often levitates), Smerdyakov (Robert S. Fisher), Fyodor’s bastard son, Ivan (Thomas Graves), the pompous philosopher, and Dmitri (Lana Lesley), smitten by love for Katya. Their relationships, and detestation of the father-figure, are often outlined by Kenan, who seems to be running the seminar.

Thomas Graves as Ivan, explain the "Grand Inquisitor"

 

Familiarity with Dostoevsky’s novel is helpful but not mandatory. However, if you’ve ever puzzled over the justly famous “Grand Inquisitor” chapter, Ivan’s summary mid-way through the play is perhaps the best, and funniest, exegesis you will ever come across. There are other set-pieces that are equally enjoyable, including a scene where Dmitri is trying to cajole Fyodor into giving him his inheritance – Dmitri rushes from character to character multiple times offering analyses that would serve well in a Spark Notes entry.

Then there are moments when you willingly watch but are unsure of what you are viewing and its import. Chief among these is an interpretive dance sequence late in the play performed by Akita that is both emotive and evocative but defies interpretation – perhaps it is Alyosha going through a dark night of the soul. Your guess is as good as mine. There there’s the aforementioned Russian bear stand-up sequence – yes, it’s about the difficulty dealing with fathers, but it lacks focus and just seems to, well, end with a whimper.

Perhaps the most head-scratching moment is the play’s conclusion, a coup de theatre of sorts that has the Karamazov family sharing what looks like a “last supper,” followed by – well, why spoil the reveal. And then, Dmitri appears to deliver a final stand-up routine but, Lesley breaks character, gives her own name, and, as Lesley, makes a dead-pan, Sylvia-Plath-like comment about her father’s death. It’s chilling and discomforting. And then, well, given what now dominates the set you just know what the Dmitri character will do to end the play.

To a certain extent, “Field Guide” defies description. There are moments of high seriousness, followed by moments that could have been lifted from a Marx Brothers film. Perhaps a close scrutiny of the script will reveal the connections between the stand-up routines and the Karamazov story-line, perhaps not. There’s a sense that some of what the audience is offered is done just for the hell of it. Maybe it would all seem perfectly logical if, when the audience is seated, each member is offered a tab of LSD. After all, Disney’s “Fantasia” is purported to be much more enjoyable if you are one toke over the line. In any event, whatever your interpretation of the goings-on, you will certainly come away knowing that you have had an experience. What have you experienced? Well, go out for a post-play glass of Chardonnay and discuss.

“Field Guide” runs through February 17. For tickets or more information call 203-432-1234 or go to www.yalerep.org  

What if...?

Constellations -- TheaterWorks -- Through February 18

What if…you didn’t turn left but turned right, said “Yes,” rather than “No,” walked into that bar rather than walked by, held out your hand instead of turning away? We all play the “What if?” game as memories collide and we contemplate serendipity. Such is the stuff of Nick Payne’s “Constellations,” which recently opened at TheaterWorks up in Hartford, an exercise in contemplating alternative universes that has, at its heart, an old-fashioned love story with Schrodinger’s Cat thrown in for good measure.

What’s with the cat? Well, not to go too much into head-scratching detail, in 1935 Erwin Schrodinger came up with a paradox involving quantum mechanics. Among other things, quantum mechanics suggests that atoms or photons could exist in different states depending on observations. So, what’s with the pussy cat? Well, Schrodinger (to simplify) posited a cat in a metal box. Was the cat dead or alive? One didn’t know until one observed the feline. In other words, you never know. Of course, you could put your ear to the box and wait to hear a “Meow,” but that’s another story.

In any event, Payne’s “Constellations,” directed by Rob Ruggiero, investigates the possibility that the lives of Marianne (Allison Pistorius), a physicist, and Roland (M. Scott McLean), a bee-keeper, could take many different turns depending on, well, serendipity (and what the audience observes). To reinforce this conceit, the stage, designed by Jean Kim, is a circle (the universe?) with the audience surrounding it. A light ring (it’s a “Beam me up” effect) hovers above the stage (as the light changes color so does the lighting beneath the stage), and above it all are stars that twinkle on and off to signify life-altering (or alternative-life) moments. There are two black benches facing each other on the stage – and that’s it. As the 75-minute, one-act evening progresses, we are treated to multiple blackouts that signify we are about to see a “what if?” to what we has just previously seen. Marianne and Roland meet, then meet again, then meet yet again, all with slightly different results (sometimes the differences are slight).

The premise is a bit over-worked, and might have led to a somewhat “Yadda-Yadda” evening save for the skill and talent of the two actors who, with nary a prop, must, as the lights go down and quickly come back up again, morph into slightly different characters and convey nuanced differences in their characters’ relationships. In essence, the actors overcome the script’s banalities and create some memorable moments, not the least of which is, late in the show, when Marianne, diagnosed with a brain tumor, tells Roland all the things she does not want to have happen – then there’s a blackout – and the scene is reenacted, but now Marianne has, due to the tumor, lost the power of speech, so she must convey her wishes to Roland via sign language (kudos to Laurel Whitsett, the sign language coach). It’s a wonderful, extended moment that engages the audience for, as Roland attempts to interpret Marianne’s gestures so, too, does the audience. It’s a bit of dramatic irony, for the audience “gets it” before Roland does.

For all of the flash-bang lighting, compliments of Philip S. Rosenberg, and the premise based on quantum mechanics, this, in the end, is an old-fashioned love story based on the time-honored question of whether or not boy will get girl, complete with a “Love Story” spin that, for all of the flashbacks, flash-forwards and flash-sideways, inevitably tugs at the heartstrings.

So, if you open that metal box is the cat alive or dead? Fortunately, it’s very much alive, for “Constellations” offers its audience a superb treat: the opportunity to see two actors performing in what might be considered a non-stop “Improv” environment. With each blackout you might imagine someone calling out from the audience: “Now do this. Now feel this way. Now act as if you don’t like each other.” Of course, it’s all scripted, but the “Improv” feeling is there, and it often creates mesmerizing moments, no more so than when Pistorius, after a tremendously emotional scene, must quickly wipe away tears to again play the scene with a different tone and attitude.

“Constellations” is interesting and engaging on many levels, not the least of which is how do you position your actors when the audience surrounds them? Ruggiero has answered this question admirably so that no matter if you are seated upstage or down, house left or right, where you are seated doesn’t matter – the emotional impact is there for all to see.

“Constellations” runs through February 18. For tickets or more information call 860-527-7838 or go to www.theaterworkshartford.org

Tell Me a Story

Feeding the Dragon -- Hartford Stage -- Through February 4

Sharon Washington. All photos by T. Charles Erickson

Storytelling existed long before writing came on the scene. There is, perhaps, something in our DNA that responds to the words: “Let me tell you a story” or “Once upon a time.” Well, give you DNA a treat and get up to Hartford Stage to see, and be enchanted by, Sharon Washington’s “Feeding the Dragon,” a gentle yet penetrating story of a young girl who essentially grew up in a library.

This one-woman show, written by Washington, co-produced with Primary Stages and under the perceptive direction of Maria Mileaf, has as its controlling image the dragon of the title, which is the coal-burning furnace in the basement of the library where Washington lives in the top-floor apartment with her father, who is in charge of maintenance, her mother and her dog, Brown. When the library is closed, Washington has the library to herself and she makes the most of it, reading fiction, non-fiction and reference works. She is essentially an autodidact, yet she is also a little girl in an adult world that often does not make total sense and holds surprises that will challenge her fairy-tale existence.

 

Though there is only one person on the stage, the evening is filled with characters: the father whose roots are in South Carolina and can count change in several languages, the mother who prides herself on being a “New Yorkah,” a grandmother who demands that Washington be “polite,” and a host of other relatives and acquaintances, including a bartender and a watermelon man.

Washington could probably just sit on a stool and still mesmerize the audience, but instead she roams the set designed by Tony Ferrieri that evokes a library but, with the three large, multi-paneled windows upstage, allows lighting designer Ann Wrightson to work some very subtle visual emphasis. All of this is supported by dead-on original music and sound design by Lindsay Jones. The technical aspects of the show are as subtle and low-keyed as the performance, but they all work together to create 90 minutes of magic.

 

Washington grew up in the early 70s, a troubled time that saw riots and strikes and a sense that the world was tearing itself apart. The library, and the books housed therein, were Washington’s shelter from much of the strife, but an extended piece late in the show, when she and her father travel to South Carolina to see relatives, hints at the tangled web of racism, as does a beautiful set-piece with Washington’s uncle, an artist who lost his leg in an accident and refused a prosthesis because it was not the right color. Then there are the boxes hidden in the back of her mother’s closet, boxes that contain dreams and aspirations never fulfilled – they evoke the world of “might have been.” As Washington reveals what those boxes contain, her words and body language transport the audience to that dark closet and what it reveals. It is a lovely, haunting moment.

Washington makes her points softly, gently, but she makes them. She eschews stridency and opts to create an atmosphere that draws in all members of the audience regardless of race or gender, for her story, as with all good stories, speaks to humanity, deals with the drams and fantasies of the young and the rude awakenings that must come to all of us.

Late in the one-act  performance I turned around from the second row to gaze up at the audience. No one was moving, there was no fidgeting, all had been captured by the art of Washington’s storytelling, and when the lights came up after her final line – “I am the story” – many audience members were wiping tears from their eyes.

Today, many theatrical productions opt to shock us with their messages. Washington has opted to “whisper” her message, and it is tremendously effective. She is a compelling, physically adroit actress whose stage presence cannot help but draw in the audience. She tells what appears to be a simple story, but if you pay attention, her story touches on what all good stories offer: the essence of what it means to be a human being and the “quest” that we have all experienced, that journey from child to adult containing moments of delight merged with moments of fear and ill-defined insecurity.

“Feeding the Dragon” runs through February 4. For tickets or more information call 860-527-5151 or go to www.hartfordtsage.org.  

The Girls Have Their Say

Steel Magnolias -- Playhouse on Park -- Through January 28

             Jill Taylor Anthony, Peggy Cosgrave, Susan Slotoroff, Liza Couser, Dorothy Stanley. Photo Curt Henderson.

What a difference 30 years can make. In 1987, “Steel Magnolias,” a play written by Robert Harling, debuted, followed two years later by a film of the same name. It’s now on the boards at Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, and it’s something of a “girls-night-out.” with the “girls” gathering not at a cocktail lounge or a male strip club, but a beauty parlor in Chinquapin, Louisiana, an establishment, as one character notes, no male would ever dare enter.

Thus, in the confines of “Truvy’s” home-based emporium of coiffures and polished nails, women can let down their hair (both literally and figuratively) and say what’s on their minds. I would imagine that if the six characters in Harling’s play could transport themselves to eavesdrop on a modern feminine confab they would be perplexed, at times shocked, and often totally bewildered. So, what the hell is #MeToo? And yet…and yet…would they? Perhaps they just might be able to offer a certain calming perspective, for as much as Harling’s play seems rooted in a now fractured mind-set, at the same time it seems to touch on verities that can be captured in the phrase, “Girls will be girls.” That is, the ladies can be soft and lovely, like magnolias, but at the same time they are constructed of steel more well-tempered than that used to form the male of the species.

In terms of plot, “Steel Magnolias” is something of a one-trick pony: these women have a long-standing relationship – they are who they are (dare one say stereotypes?) – until Shelby (Susan Slotoroff), a young, somewhat rebellious woman with type 1 diabetes, announces that she is pregnant, much to the consternation of her mother, M’Lynn (Jeannie Hines), who fears the pregnancy will endanger her daughter’s life. Commenting on this, and other daily-life concerns, are the regulars at Truvy’s: the slightly acerbic owner, Truvy (Jill Taylor Anthony), her new assistant, a somewhat born-again Annelle (Liza Couser), Clairlee (Dorothy Stanley), the doyenne of the group and Ousier (Peggy Cosgrave), the resident curmudgeon, all under the direction of Susan Haefner.

The pleasure to be found in “Steel Magnolias” rests in the presentation of character and, once this is done efficiently and economically, watching these characters interact as they comment on their loves, their lives, their husbands (and men in general) and various hairdos. The play is well-cast – there really isn’t a false note throughout the entire evening, and kudos must go to David Alan Stern, the play’s dialect coach, for these actors do sound, throughout the entire evening, as if they are truly Southern-fried.

One might question the decision of scenic designer David Lewis to leave so much center-stage open space on this thrust stage. The beauty parlor chairs are set extreme stage left and right, or upstage, which often creates a visual vacuum into which the actors enter and exit. There’s also a rather stunting of emotions during an emotional scene between M’Lynn and Shelby: given Haefner’s blocking, the actors seem to be locked into their chairs and there’s little or no eye contact between them. What’s being said and the accompanying body language (or lack of same) just don’t seem to mesh.

Setting aside such quibbles and concerns, there’s no denying that this is a warm and embracing production. It is of an era, but so is “Hedda Gabler” and “The Doll House.” Given today’s current battle and bashing of the sexes, you may find the concerns of the ladies in “Steel Magnolias” a bit mundane, but then, if you do then you would find discussions of love, friendship, nurturing and sheltering mundane, and they are not. Like it or not, we haven’t come very far from 1987 or, for that matter, 1887. Guys gather, often in bars or saloons, to bemoan how they are misunderstood and to kvetch; girls gather, often in beauty salons or (I’m dating myself here) Tupperware parties to bemoan how they are misunderstood and to kvetch. In the long run, it’s good for the soul, and so is “Steel Magnolias.”  

“Steel Magnolias” runs through September 29. For tickets or more information call 860-523-5900, X10, or go to www.playhouseonpark.org.