Pacing is too slow in ‘Steel Magnolias’

If you’ve ever been in a small-town beauty salon, then you know it can be one of the hot spots on the block. For women, that is. And certainly Truvy’s Beauty Salon, the setting for Robert Harling’s peachy play, “Steel Magnolias,” now at Bangor’s Penobscot Theatre, is the hot spot for the women of Chinquapin, La. They come there to share the news of their lives — the weddings, births, deaths and predicaments that have made them strong-hearted blossoms of womanhood. They also come because Truvy has taught them well that “there is no such thing as natural beauty.”

And although hair plays a big part in this story of Southern womanhood (and indeed, what other region of the country could focus a play on hair?), it is only the superficial reason these women find themselves all in one room.

Several plots unfold in the first 20 minutes of the play. The plucky Truvy is interviewing a new assistant, Annelle, a nervous newcomer who has just taken a room at a boarding house and won’t say much about her husband. It’s the wedding day of Shelby, the young belle of the town, and she has come to have baby’s breath woven into a Princess Grace hair style.

Her mother, M’Lynn, is understandably concerned that the wedding party, decked in Shelby’s favorite color pink, will make the altar look like it has been sprayed with Pepto Bismol.

And the curmudgeonly Ouiser is in a tizzy over her ailing dog, the property line for a magnolia tree, and just about anything else that has the guts to cross her path.

But it’s not all high spirits and bouffants on the day of the wedding. Amid the gossip and girl talk, Shelby slumps into a spasm. She is having a diabetic insulin reaction. Having known Shelby all her life, the women respond without alarm. They minister to her until she recovers and then go on about their kvetching. But Harling has served notice to his audience: The play is not just about sugar and spice and everything nice.

The Penobscot production, directed by Lisa A. Tromovitch, pays tribute to both the “steel” and the “magnolia” side of these Southern womenfolk. But the pacing is overly slow — even for a Southern drama — and that holds the play back.

Part of the problem is the lack of naturalistic line delivery. Often, the six female actors in the cast sound as if they’re spouting out lines, rather than creating a milieu. Harling’s play is, essentially, made up of one-liners, so it’s easy to see why the production gets tripped by this. But there’s also some elegance to his script, and Tromovitch’s troupe too often misses it.

That’s not to say that there aren’t funny and tearful moments, because there are. Kat Minkevich, as Truvy, has some of the best lines of the play — such as, “Time marches on and eventually you realize it’s marchin’ across your face” — and she delivers them in a rugged and wise tone. And, when she’s not striking poses, Minkevich is the most natural actor on stage. She always has her hands in someone’s hair, so it doesn’t look like she’s creating inauthentic stage business for herself. This cannot always be said of the other actors as they navigate around the gaudy, two-tiered salon by set designer Jay H. Skriletz.

Jennifer Monahan, as Shelby, and Sharon Zolper, as M’Lynn, play off each other nicely. Monahan has a winning Marie Osmond smile and maintains a sweetness throughout the show. And Zolper is in her most convincing role yet at Penobscot.

The rest of the cast — Lisa L. Goodness, Ann Foskett and Ruth Miller — share the fault of either not being able to sustain a Southern accent or sacrificing clarity in deference to accent.

What this ensemble cast as a whole does create is a sense of warmth among the characters. Plays about women often profess to champion them but end up humiliating them. That is not true for this production. Much of what made Harling’s play so popular in New York and as a feature film comes through, and, indeed, brought in several full houses for Penobscot’s opening weekend and inspired a handful of viewers to give a standing ovation for at least one performance.

“Steel Magnolias” will be performed 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through May 21 at Penobscot Theatre, Bangor. A 5 p.m. performance will be held May 13. For tickets, call 942-3333.