Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling (1987)

 

TW:

 

SYNOPSIS

            Annelle has just been hired to assist Truvy with her in home salon on the morning of Shelby’s wedding just in time for the neighborhood ladies to start showing up for their appointments. Truvy all but legally adopts Annelle after discovering the girl’s unfortunate luck with a runaway husband being hunted by the law. Several months pass and Shelby visits for Christmas surprising the girls with the news that she’s pregnant despite doctors discouraging her from it due to her diabetes. She survives the pregnancy and gives birth to a healthy son, but her kidneys fail to keep up with her body’s demands. Her mother, M’Lynn, plans to give her a kidney, but it doesn’t take. Shelby doesn’t survive the surgical attempt to fix the problem.

 

CHARACTERS

Truvy Jones – 40s, Owner of Beauty Shop

Annelle Dupuy-Desoto – 19, Shop Assistant

Claire Belcher – 66, Mayor’s Widow, Grande Dame, Self-Described as Fat

Shelby Eatenton-Latcherie – 25, Prettiest Girl in Town

M’Lynn Eatenton – 50s, Shelby’s Mother, Socially Prominent Career Woman

Ouiser (Pronounced “Weezer”) Bourdeaux – 66, Wealthy Curmudgeon, Acerbic but Loveable

 

POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES

            M’Lynn has the most famous monologue from the show about her daughter’s final moments. If desired, it can be lengthened with cuts from her earlier lines.

            Annelle also has a monologue about how she processes Shelby’s death in accordance with her religion. Could be a good choice for a younger actress wanting to use something from this play for a dramatic piece.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            It’s Steel Magnolias, a classic, especially amongst Southerners, that continues to hold up. This play was written as part of Robert Harling’s grieving process after losing his sister to post-partum complications due to diabetes. The movie trailer doesn’t exaggerate much billing it as the funniest comedy that will make you cry. The play is deeply set in the 80s and the most out of tune jokes with a 2020s audience would be the ones at the expense of the ladies’ husbands, but personally I see them as being very indicative of how the nature of marriage has changed drastically over the last few decades. These women were married in the 50s and 60s when women didn’t have many options and still heavily depended on marrying quick and well. That sort of thing is hard to rebel against when it’s been your norm for 20-30 years.

            At it’s heart, Steel Magnolias is a play about friendship through the ups and especially the downs. It’s very heartwarming throughout and a show I think everyone should experience.

Gemini by Albert Innaurato (1977)

TW: Black Slurs, Homophobic Slurs, Italian Slurs, Antisemitism, Autistic Slurs, Suicide Attempts, Child Abuse, Fatphobia, Profanity

 

SYNOPSIS

            Francis Geminiani is home from Harvard on summer break and on the eve of his 21^st birthday, college friends – the siblings Judith and Randy, drop in for an unexpected visit. Francis does everything to get his WASP friends out of the Italian neighborhood by telling lies about his father and then telling lies about them to his father, but neither work. After sending Randy away to entertain the transportation enthused neighbor, Judith confesses her desire for a relationship with Francis whom she’d already slept with in event prior to the play. Francis denies her on account of being fat and ugly and then admits that he might be gay. Later it’s revealed that the boy Francis has a crush on is no other than Randy who attest that since Francis has never acted on his feelings, he might not actually be gay. Randy proceeds to strip for Francis, but they’re interrupted by Judith’s return, upset to lose the boy she’s fallen for to her brother. They argument is disrupted by Francis’s father and neighbors returning with his birthday cake to start the celebration which Francis ruins by throwing chunks of cake everywhere. The siblings decide to leave and make their arrangements and saying their goodbyes only for Francis to realize he’s been an idiot the whole time. Bunny, a neighbor, calls in favors from various uncles to have the siblings brought back and send all three of them off to the sibling’s summer home. Francis and Judith embrace and the trio runs to meet the ambulance that’ll rush them to the train.

 

CHARACTERS

Francis Geminiani – Turning 21, Plump, Italian American

Bunny Weinberger – About 40, Heavy-Set, Blowsy, Once Beautiful & Voluptuous, Now Rough Talking Alcoholic, Irish American

Randy Hastings – 19, WASP

Judith Hastings – 20, Beautiful, WASP, Aggressively Intelligent, Well Meaning

Herschel Weinberger – 16, Very Heavy, Asthmatic, Very Bright, Eccentric, Irish-Jewish American

Fran Geminiani – 45, Working Class, Boisterous, Friendly, Slightly Overweight, Mild Emphysema, Italian American

Lucille Pompi – Early 40s, Very Thin, Working Class, Lady-Like, Italian American

 

POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES

            Bunny has the first monologue. It’s about why she has to appear in court. The monologue is funny, but laden with expletives about breaking the arm of the wife of the man she’s sleeping with when they get caught in the act. She also has one about her lousy childhood but it’s supposed to be staged from high on a phone line pole that she’s about to jump off of. It ends with her telling her son to move out of the way or she’ll crush him.

            Hershel has a monologue explaining that he’s not just intrigued by the subway system but buses and trolleys as well. He talks about the trolley graveyard and how even though people make fun of them for being filthy, useless, and ugly and you get the sense that Hershel shares a camaraderie with them.

            Fran has a monologue about planting the fig tree after his wife left him, but I don’t know that a monologue about a White woman leaving the kid she had with an Italian man for not being white enough will land as well in 2021. There’s also the monologue’s lack of a proper ending since he gets distracted by Lucille trying to eat off of his plate.

            Lucille has one monologue about Francis being gay though she refers to him as being a queer as opposed to using queer as an attribute. The gist of it is that Fran has his suspicions, but would rather have a queer son than a dead one.

            Lastly, we have Francis’s monologue where he thanks everyone in the cast for how awful they are save Herschel who’s stepped away. It ends with him throwing clumps of birthday cake around the yard and Herschel reappearing having tried to kill himself by eating rat poison.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            This is one doozy of a show. It’s the fourth longest running straight play on Broadway so I assumed it was going to be amazing. It starts off as an ethnic comedy where you’ve got these two WASPs in an Italian neighborhood in South Philly, but then gets serious with the introduction of the gay subplot that doesn’t seem to be resolved by the end of the show. Judith is the one Francis embraces and they run for the train, that’s it. It’s not clear if there was a real question of homosexuality or if it was an excuse Francis was using to self-fulfill the prophecy of their relationship not working out. His other excuses are that he’s fat and ugly which ugliness is subjective and the character description does have him pudgy. There’s a chance that he’s interested in both siblings which could have been nice to explore even in a vein of taking it one step at a time.

            I was expecting Fran or one of the other adults to give Francis a lecture at the end of how stupid he’s been over the weekend to trigger his epiphany, but it seems to come more from Francis realizing he overreacted with his cake. He leaves for a walk immediately after ruining his birthday party and comes back just in time to see the siblings off and apologizes only after Judith does. It’s only when everyone starts to leave the stage that Francis realizes he doesn’t actually want to be alone and the neighborhood scrambles to help him pack so he can leave with the siblings. Although the ensuing chaos of packing for a trip in two minutes and leaving for a train that’s about to leave should be entertaining to watch, it’s a bit anticlimactic when Francis has been bottling up his feelings the whole show and never actually reveals what’s really going on with him.

            I assumed this play would never make it in recent times what with all the slurs and abuse that get used casually. Bunny tries to commit suicide but when Herschal has an asthma attack over it she chases him into the house and pushes a piano on him. In the 1977 version it’s clearly played for laughs, but there was a revival in 2018 that let room in the scenes like this for the audience to have mixed reactions. It would have been easy to make Herschal’s overweight, clumsy, and asthmatic character into a walking joke, especially since the character is supposed to be 16, but reads as if he’s a child or, more likely, autistic. From reviews of the 2018 run, they seemed to have given the character depth. I’d like to hunt down what edits they may have made. I just can’t see a show getting away with using the N word to describe the Italian lower class people speak compared to the Italian standard taught in classrooms.

 

Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon (1963)

TW: Romani Slur, Homophobia, Transphobia

 

SYNOPSIS

            Corie and Paul have just finished their six day honeymoon and are moving into their tiny five flight walk up apartment. Corie plans on making it perfect despite the hole in the skylight and the radiator being broken in the middle of a New York February. Paul has his reservations, but trusts Corie to make it work. Corie’s mother visits to see the place, not expecting it to be such a hike and Corie gets the idea to set her up with their eccentric neighbor that lives in the attic. Only moments before the two are supposed to meet does Corie start thinking it might not have been a good idea. Still they all try Velasco’s strange knichi hors d'oeuvre which must be popped into the mouth and not nibbled. The stove is broken so they decide to go out to eat and Velasco takes them out to Staten Island to an Albanian restaurant that only Corie is excited to try. When the group returns Velasco and Corie are in high spirits racing up the stairs to make coffee for the group, meanwhile Paul has had to resort to carrying Ethel up the never ending flights of stairs and the two collapse completely exhausted and desperate for the night to end. Velasco insists on taking Ethel home personally and Corie encourages the two to go despite Ethel’s protests. Alone, Corie and Paul begin to argue about the evening and how different their personalities are until it’s decided that they should get a divorce. The next day Corie insists that Paul should move out immediately despite his cold, but his exit is interrupted by the discover that Ethel never made it home. In a panic Corie checks Velasco’s attic only to be chased back downstairs by her mother wearing only his robe and slippers with Velasco nowhere to be found. Knowing that they’re safe, Paul proceeds to leave just as Corie begins calling out to him. Corie regrets driving away and Ethel teaches her that marriage is about compromise. Velasco returns explaining that he’s having Ethel’s clothes dry-cleaned and that nothing promiscuous happened last night and the two leave. Paul returns feverish, soaking wet, and drunk demanding that if either of them leave it should be Corie. He explains that he ran barefoot in the park like Corie wanted and tries to get randy like she asked though he instead scares her into hiding in the bathroom and desperately missing the normal wet blanket Paul. He more or less hears her declaration of love but has decided to climb up the skylight during it. Corie climbs up to save him and they renew their love.

 

CHARACTERS

Corie Bratter – Young Adult, Lovely, Full of Hope

Telephone Repair Man – Mid Thirties, Tall, Heavy-set

Delivery Man – Early Sixties

Paul Bratter – 26

Mrs. Banks – Late 40s, Pretty, Unkept

Victor Velasco – 58

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES

            The closet we get to a monologue is Paul’s self ramblings when Corie goes to Velasco’s apartment looking for her mom. He’s got a lot of stage business during this monologue and it’s only partially to Corie. Most of it is the equivalent of him just thinking out loud without clear direction.

            Aside from that there’s just moments where Corie’s truly rambling, but it might be possible to stitch together lines from when Paul and Corie are really going at it to create a monologue. Most if this play is very dependent on good scene work between the actors and playing around with the set.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            A lot of the play still holds up after 60 decades, but there’s some dated values like when Paul is telling Corie about the crazy neighbors he mentions a mister and a missus same sex couple in which no one knows which gender they are. Most likely this is meant as a double-edged play on masculine trans women and effeminate gay men or masculine lesbians and effeminate trans men. Either way the joke can be hit or miss in 2021. Paul also goes on to mention that Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales, Mr. and Mrs. Armandariz, and Mr. Calhoun all share one apartment which unfortunately isn’t too uncommon nowadays unless the implication is that all the apartments in the brownstone are studios with only one bathroom and a dressing room. There may be other unfortunate implications in that line. Regardless the play is much funnier than it is offensive using even the most scrutinizing standards.