Robert Harling’s STEEL MAGNOLIAS
“In a good shoe, I wear a size six, but a seven feels so good, I buy a size eight.”
Truvy in Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias
A play can split theatre people right down the middle: they either absolutely love it and want to do it over and over or really loathe the idea of having to be a part of it at all.
This photo is from a production of Steel Magnolias done at The Virginia Samford Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama.
I believe Steel Magnolias is like that. And yes, it was a play before it became a sensational 1989 film hit directed by Herbert Ross. At Samford, a student directed it in the spring of 1995, and I enjoyed working on the periphery of it, even though I am not usually drawn to kitchen dramas or situation comedies, of which this is a blend. (Okay, I know the work is set in a beauty parlor.)
At the beginning of the play, situated in northwest Louisiana, a group of women are arguing about magnolias. In a recent interview with Garden and Gun Magazine, playwright Robert Harling said that as a child, he recalled that a lady in his neighborhood “had a large metal floral paperweight on her kitchen counter that served as a receptacle for change, keys… it weighed down the check for the milkman or the dry cleaner receipt... She called that thing on her counter ‘the steel magnolia.’
“In her sweet drawl, she’d say, ‘Take a quarter from the steel magnolia and get us some ice cream.’ I found it interesting that the thing was neither steel nor a magnolia, but that’s what she called it. And the imagery stuck. Something beautiful made of very strong stuff.” The phrase has since come to typify a soft-spoken Southern woman who is at the same time feisty and independent, as delicate as the fragrant blooms and yet as durable as metal.
For the plot, Robert Harling used the story of his own sister’s diabetic complications following the birth of his namesake nephew. She died when a family member declined to donate a kidney. He originally composed a short story both to work through the experience and to allow his nephew to get a first hand word-portrait of his deceased mother.
In that same interview with Garden and Gun, Harling recalled the play was written in just over a week. His sister and her death had so influenced him that when he found that playwriting was the best way to capture her life, the work flowed in an unending stream to the finale. “I had no idea what I’d written. I asked the first person I gave it to if it even looked like a play. I wasn’t really sure. All I knew was that I felt it portrayed my sister’s life and spirit accurately, and that was enough for me.”
I like the play because it was written by a Southerner about Southerners. It has some great, natural-sounding native lines in it, like “I should’ve known Louie had problems when his imaginary playmates wouldn’t play with him,” and “The nicest thing I can say about her is that all her tattoos are spelled correctly.”
And I often think of Truvy’s “In a good shoe, I wear a size six, but a seven feels so good, I buy a size eight.” Same exact saying can be used for ladies underwear. It is such a gently humorous way of admitting my own conceit at desiring to appear smaller, daintier, or more delicate than I actually am, and yet revealing my authenticity by telling the truth at the same time. Humble vainglory. Like a steel magnolia.