05 Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling

The close-knit women at Truvy’s Beauty Salon, the unofficial hub of Chinquapin La., have lots of time to gossip. Their husbands – absent, depressed, or dead – have made sure of that. Consequently, visitors to the salon get more than a wash and cut.

The wise-cracking Truvy, with the help of her new glamour technician Annelle, dispenses shampoo with liberal doses of free advice and gossip to the town’s curmudgeon, Ouiser; an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee, and the local town social worker, M’Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby, is on the verge of marriage.

Alternately hilarious and touching, the play focuses on the camaraderie of these six Southern women who talk, gab, gossip, chitchat, needle and harangue each other through the best of times – and cry, caress, comfort and repair one another through the worst. They’re soul mates in a rarefied way that assumes a cult of femininity – sisters come hell and high water. Pushing laughter and pain together, Steel Magnolias pulls tears from even the most cynical eyes.

The women at Truvy’s beauty parlour are the steel magnolias of the title: Southern belles, flowery on the outside, but strong enough inside to survive any challenge, many of which are presented through the course of the narrative.