Theatre Aspen will kick off its summer season with a production of “Steel Magnolias” this month.
The play is focused on the strong, loving friendships among a group of women in Louisiana as they experience the joys of life and navigate grief.
The script by Robert Harling, published in 1987, served as inspiration for a 1989 movie with an all-star cast that included Julia Roberts and Sally Field. But it wasn’t a line-for-line adaptation, and unlike the film, male actors don’t appear in any scene of the play.
Actress Claire Saunders, who plays Shelby in the Aspen show, said she appreciates the distinctions of the play.
“There is a gift in the fact that it is different than the movie. … There's enough material here that is not there, and vice versa, that it naturally has its own life,” she said.
That sentiment resonates with actress Mary Bacon, too. She plays Shelby’s mother, M’Lynn, and feels that the stage production goes deeper than the film, which she considers an “old chestnut.” She attributes the depth in part to the script and in part to the connection between actors and audiences in a live performance.
“When you're breathing at the same time as actors on stage, … (and) everyone in the audience is thinking the same thing, I love it,” Bacon said.
“It's not just you presenting something and then people taking it in,” she said. “It's a conversation.”
The first performance of “Steel Magnolias” takes place Monday night at the Hurst Theatre in Rio Grande Park. Shows continue through June 29.
