Michelle F. Solomon, ATCA, FFCC

With its first stage set built in house and its first non-musical production, Boca Raton’s The Wick Theater continues to take chances, while making sure it entertains its audience. This season, its first, saw extravaganzas like White Christmas, Sound of Music and 42nd Street. With Steel Magnolias, The Wick goes for a show that audiences will recognize.

Norb Joerder, who was behind the magnificent Wick production of 42nd Street, directs Steel Magnolias. To his credit, he avoids creating a stage version of the famous movie that heavily relied on celebrity casting despite Robert Harling’s acclaimed 1987 stage play having strength on its own without having to draw audiences in with Hollywood names (Harling wrote the film’s screenplay, too). Yet the famous 1989 film adaptation is what the audience finds familiarity with. No doubt that was a consideration in The Wick selecting it for its audience, who are already getting used to the theater’s groove for presenting known pieces.

At intermission, patrons traded trivia, trying to outwit each other about who played who in the 1989 film adaptation: "Which one was Shirley Maclaine?" (Ouiser Boudreaux) "Who played Truvy?" (Dolly Parton).

Joerder, instead, digs into the women’s relationships, Southern womenhood, and their reliance on each other, no doubt due to small town living. Steel Magnolias focuses on six women of varied ages in the Louisiana parish of Chinquapin. The audience is taken along over three years, circa 1980s, as the friends regularly gather on Saturdays at the hair salon. In a man’s world, this is a locker room or barbershop. Like those male haunts, secondary here is the service that’s performed, primary is the camaraderie.

The play begins on the wedding day of Shelby Eatenton (Alison McCartan). It’s one of the bigger events to happen in Chinquapin. Her mother, M’Lynn (Aaron Bower), while happy about her daughter’s wedding, is distracted from the joy because of her concern for the girl’s health. Shelby is a type-1 diabetic and has limitations due to the lifelong chronic disease; it has stifled her in many ways, but mostly the stunting is due to her mother’s overprotective ways.

Other patrons of the salon are Clairee Belcher (Sally Bondi), the widow of the parish’s previous mayor, and Ouiser (Robin Proett Olson). On this particular day at the salon, Truvy has hired another stylisht, Annelle Dupuy-Desoto (Linda Farmer), a 19-year-old who is new in town with a past and a present that she’s keeping secret.

On opening night, there was a forced connectedness among the actresses. They fared better during duo or trio pairings than when the script called for group dynamics. No doubt the Wick’s Magnolias’ cast will become more of an ensemble as the run continues.

Highlights were Bondi and Olson’s interaction as the two older friends, Clairee and Ouiser. Bondi inhabits the former first lady of Chinquapin. The actress brings her own quippy style and staccato delivery to some of the play’s most humorous lines and creates an original character that is far from the film role (Olympia Dukakis played Clairee in the film for trivia buffs).

Proett Olson is the other actress to watch as crotchety neighbor Ouiser whose ways are set in stone. "I’m not crazy; I’ve just been in a very bad mood for 40 years," she deadpans. Proett Olson’s Ouiser is genuinely developed and spectacularly wry. When the two of these gals volley their insults back and forth, the timing is spot on and will only get snappier as the run proceeds.

Bower who was just seen in Wick’s 42nd Street approaches M’Lynn cautiously, which doesn’t provide the necessary build up for the mother-of-the-bride’s near breakdown in Act II. McCartan, another standout in 42nd Street, doesn’t quite convey the fragileness of Shelby, instead playing the role more on the surface than giving a hint that there’s deeper angst here because of her sickness and her mother’s doting.

Truvy, the den mother of the group, is played by Patti Eyler, and while this character has her own share of wonderful wisecracks, Eyler’s Truvy is played close to the vest, never really giving the air that this is her shop or that she’s comfortable in the space. Further into the run, here’s hoping that Eyler adds dimension so that we all feel at home in Truvy’s comfy shop. Farmer’s channeling of Daryl Hannah’s movie turn in Magnolias zaps the freshness out of the Bible-beating Annelle. Here’s hoping that she finds her own voice with the character as the run continues.

Resident scenic designer Sean McClelland created Truvy’s Beauty Salon, the centerpiece of Steel Magnolias. McClelland, whose fantastic set for August Osage County at Actor’s Playhouse won the Silver Palm Award, finds some of Osage to imbue in his Magnolias set, especially the vastness of the space and his ever-present attention to detail.

The Wick consistently gets my commendation for taking risks so soon out of the gate and I once again offer kudos for its taking a chance. As the run of the show continues, there’s no doug that this Steel Magnolias will blossom.

Steel Magnolias plays through April 20 at The Wick Theater and Costume Museum, 7901 North Federal Highway, Boca Raton. Performances 2 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday; 7:30 p.m.  www.thewick.org or 561-995-2333.