The idea of a mother burying her child doesn’t immediately spring to mind as a fit topic for a work of comedy.
But the La Grange Area Teen Theater Ensemble’s (LATTE) production of “Steel Magnolias” pulled off the comic/drama quite nicely last weekend.
“After watching Steel Magnolias, you will be more appreciative of the family and friends you have around you, and learn to be thankful for having them in your life,” Mia Wojcik, 15, a freshman at Lyons Township High School who played the mother M’Lynn Eatenton, said before the production.
After the last showing, a Sunday matinee, Wojcik talked about playing a character that ended the production with such emotionally-draining scenes.
“It was very emotionally challenging mentally,” she said, “because you have to constantly rehearse really sad scenes. You have be just brave and put yourself out there. Everyone experiences grief in a different way, and the thing I love about Steel Magnolias is that no matter what you’ve been through, you can always relate to it one way or another.”
The production ran from April 28 through April 30. All three nights the Plymouth Place auditorium was filled.
The stage play, first produced in 1987 off-Broadway, was inspired by the death of writer Robert Harling’s sister from the complications of childbirth and diabetes.
Harling first produced a short story based on his family’s experience, he later adapted it into a stage play. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie starring Sally Field as M’Lynn and Julia Roberts as her daughter, Shelby.
Set in the fictional Northwest Louisiana parish of Chinquapin, the action takes place entirely in Truvy’s beauty salon, a former carport her husband converted into a business so she could support him the rest of his life, as she said at one point.
The story begins on daughter Shelby’s wedding day, with a dramatic scene portraying her diabetic related seizure, foreshadowing the conflict between Shelby and M’Lynn over the dangers then present for a diabetic woman bearing children.
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The play develops in the second scene of the first act with Shelby announcing she was pregnant.
Act 2 takes place after Shelby’s son is born and increasingly focuses on Shelby’s struggles coping with dialysis and raising a rambunctious son at the same time.
The final scene of Act 2 relates the aftermath of Shelby’s death after a failed kidney transplant from her mother, which closely tracks with the real-life events of Harling’s family.
Throughout, the audience is kept alternately laughing and holding its breath waiting for the outcome of Shelby’s battles with diabetes and motherhood.
The central strength of the story rest in the interactions between six strong Southern women, regulars in Truvy’s establishment, who are irreverent and seldom at a loss for witty banter — including wisecracks that are only possible within a group of friends who have known each other their entire lives.
The actors, some just entering high school, shared their feelings about the play and what it means in the Playbill.
Angelina Calvetti, a 15-year-old freshman at Riverside-Brookfield High School, plays Truvy Jones, the beauty shop owner who was played by Dolly Parton in the movie.
“Truvy only wants people to feel at home, to bring comfort to those around her,” Calvetti said of her character. “I love how selfless she is, putting the happiness of others before hers.”
Unlike the movie, the character Truvy is central to the entire narrative, with the scenes taking place entirely in the beauty shop. And after Sunday’s last performance, Calvetti acknowledged the daunting challenge.
“It was a lot,” she said. “I had the most lines … it was probably more than 300 lines. A lot of it had to do with the chemistry between everybody and understanding each character and the people playing them. That really helped.”
Callie Devine, a 17-year-old junior at Westmont High School, plays Shelby, the diabetic daughter who was the reason for the story being put to words.
“Shelby was an amazing opportunity to learn and develop a deeper role than I’ve done in the past,” she said. “She has a huge range of challenges, deeper emotions, and health issue throughout the show.”
Devine had one of the most poignant lines of the production, one that perfectly expressed the overpowering desire she had to become a mother, even at the risk to her health: “I’d rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”
The rest of the cast included Evelyn D’Apice, a 13-year-old 8th- grader at Park Junior High in La Grange Park, playing the assistant hair stylist Annelle; 16-year-old Riverside-Brookfield sophomore Aiden Jakubiak as Clairee Belcher, the former mayor’s cheerful widow; 14-year-old Nazareth Academy freshman Lucie Grefenstette plays the curmudgeonly Louisa “Ouiser” Boudreaux, Clairee’s best friend and confidant.
For Felicia Pfluger, artistic director of LATTE, staging “Steel Magnolias satisfied a long-held desire.
“It’s always been on my bucket list of things to do,” she said.
She agreed with Mia Wojcik that the work was “very emotionally challenging. It has a lot of different emotions.”
Pfluger stressed the “very heavy” subject matter, and brought in a retired pharmacist with diabetes to talk to the cast, highlighting the differences between diabetes treatment in the 1980s compared to today.
And she noted that she tried to teach lessons that were “not just for the stage. I wanted them to have methods of looking at different things in life. There’s a lot of focus on resiliency; the hardest thing is that when you love someone but you’re helpless to help them.
For further information on LATTE, which is now planning its Summer Production, visit its website, lattetheater.com
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.