Steel Magnolias
[Devin Dayley]
Review:
What did I think of Steel Magnolias? Well, let’s start the discussion with some knowledge that will be important to have later on. I went in to this play completely blind. I had never seen the movie, seen the play, read any literature on it, hell, I didn’t even know if it was a musical or a straight-play. For those of you who might be slightly confused about this, like you recognize the name but you don’t know where you know it from or what it is, that was how I was. Let me clear up any confusion you may have. Steel Magnolias is a 1989 film starring Sally Fields, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, and others as well as it is a stage play. It follows the lives of a group of Louisiana, southern women through their conversations and interactions with each other and is set mainly in the hair salon where they all get their hair done.
I decided to go to this play for two reasons. 1) someone asked me to go, and 2) this is a piece of live theater that I can enjoy outside of my house and away from my tv. As a side note, I watch a lot of tv. I do this because I am handicapped as to what I can do outside. So when a chance comes around for me to see a play, I try to always take it.
The story, being that it’s without a plot, is quite enthralling. It has a cast of all women and discusses problems faced by women. With all that being said, though, there is an amount of heart that can be felt and enjoyed by everybody. The thing that I liked most about the story is the human relationships that are forged by people. These women, although they were all different in so many ways, had so much love for each other and would do just about anything for each other. Watching that made me want relationships like that and made me want to be a friend like that.
And I think that can be one of the best bi-products of any fictional entertainment locale. Causing you to want to be a better person. Most things that we do or watch are situations where other people are inspired or forced to be better people but there are few things, now-a-days, that inspire us to be better people.
There were two things that I didn’t like about this experience, and I don’t know if these can be blamed on this particular production or if it’s the play in general. It was so very geared towards women. Yes, I understand that this is a female led show and I have no problem with that. My problem comes with it being so overly feminine that I felt out of place by being a male and being there.
The other problem I had with this was it being geared more toward the elderly. This play had older women as most of the lead characters. I am somewhat of an old soul anyway so I did not have an issue with this, I was able to look past it and still enjoy the play. I know that some people would have an issue with it, though. I don’t know that this problem can necessarily be fixed, based on the story and the characters, so it kind of splits the potential audience into two groups: the people who don’t have an issue with the elderly and will see it anyway and the people who do draw an issue with it and will not see it.
I would rate this play a 6.9/10.
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