Home Show Steel Magnolias

Greetings, Empire member and or members.
What's going on?
If you're here in the sound of my voice, it means you know this voice, because it means you've checked out the Clubhouse podcast at least once in your existence.
Where you're one stop shop for all things pop culture, live at VocalNow Studios, it's VOKAL.
Every Sunday night, 7 Eastern, 4 Pacific, make sure you download the app and check it out.
Some great shows, just not just ours. A lot of great shows on the VocalNow network. You don't want to miss any of them.
Because it's time for another.
Home show 429 for those of you playing in the home game. Welcome. My name is Rob. I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And we're going to talk a little bit of the theater today.
But I'm not alone for this. Joining me across the desk in the co-host chair is my co-host and a man who is a theater kid.
No matter how old he gets, he will always be a theater kid. He is Chad. Welcome, sir.
And I'll proudly wave that flag.
Dog on right you do. Riding out the day is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man that knows that there's two different ways to spell theater. You may know him as fond, don't go.
But his mom and even Don Ford, I'm going to call him Don Ford.
There is.
Yeah. E-R-N-R-E.
Depending on the, depending on the event you just go, just go, just go, just go, just go.
The referee? Yes.
Okay. Yes.
Whenever we do a home show, it is to review something, and this is no exception.
Now, this one's going to get a little local on you, but stick with us anyway, because it's always great discussion.
The Wiley Theater and Downtown Dallas, part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
Currently, until October 28, 2018, is staging Steel Magnolius.
Ford, is that the whole thing? Yes, sir.
We got the Kaylee Nierbaith, the Dallas Theater Center and Wiley.
We love the Dallas Theater Center so much. It is such a beautiful, uh,
that Wiley Group of theaters.
And we're so lucky that we have amazing vendors that let us see stuff so that we can talk about them.
Now, when I say we, I mean me, because we had to do a little bit of divide and conquer.
Double duty.
On this night.
So, I went to this. This is, again, we love the Wiley.
Yeah. The Wiley is such an amazing, like that room, I've seen it.
I don't know that there's a way that I haven't seen it configured.
I've seen shows in the round.
I've seen shows that had no floor seats.
I've seen shows that I've had more floor seats than there was a stage.
In this particular instance.
Yeah.
I was in the second row center on the aisle.
There was nobody in front of me.
You poor guy, horrible seats. I know.
But, again, there's also not a bad seat in the entire Wiley Theater,
the way they have the things structured.
This is the original stage production that the 1989 movie is based on.
Okay.
I kind of figured this one out.
Which is very semi-autobiographical if you read about it.
About the guy that wrote it and powered his sister.
Now, if you've seen the movie, you're like, oh, I've seen the movie.
No, no, no.
I've seen it.
It's the same but different.
There are only six members of this cast.
Period.
Really?
And it's the six women.
Now, this is about a group of women who live in Louisiana in the mid-80s
and how their lives intertwine.
There is one set.
Everything takes place in Truvee Jones's salon.
Everything.
Wow.
There are basically four scenes.
Stay with me.
Okay.
This thing runs with the intermission two hours and 20 minutes.
Golly.
Two hours and 15 because it's exactly split in half.
Act one is an hour.
Act two is an hour.
They pick an awful lot of meat off that bone with just one set.
So you have to think that given the facts that I've told you,
and these are all facts, there's a lot of dialogue here.
Right.
A lot.
I mean, again, it's basically split into four scenes.
There's a little bit of transition between them.
And the way the transitions work is you hear there are radio bits
that tell you where you are in the timeline.
Okay.
All right.
Actual broadcast bits.
It gives the actresses a chance to change.
So you've got six, and it's all six women.
There's no men in the cast.
You have Tiana K. Blair plays Shelby Eatinson Lushere.
She, that is, Shelby is the Julia Roberts role.
Okay.
Then you have Anna Hagen-Dorn, who plays NL.
That's Daryl Hannah's character.
I know I've had my personal tragedies, but they will not affect my ability to do good hair.
Okay.
All right.
She's the new girl.
Shelby is the town debutante, if you will.
Right.
The very first scene is her preparing for her wedding.
Then you have Lizmi Kelle, who plays Truby Jones.
Then you have Sally Noison Valley, who plays Weezer.
That would be Shirley McClain's character.
Okay.
She was the one who played the female scrooge two years ago in a Christmas care.
I was going to ask if you recognize any of these songs.
Then you have Kristi Vela, who plays Malin, who is Shelby's mother,
which in the film, I just completely lost it.
Oh, it's, was that Sally Field's role?
I think it's been so long.
I've only seen it like maybe twice.
Malin was Sally Field.
Okay.
That's Williamson, that plays Clary Belcher, who is Olympia Duke.
The cock is a scrooge.
Okay.
That's the whole cast.
That's it, huh?
Mm-hmm.
I'm just going to say it.
This is phenomenal.
That's surprising, given how sparse the...
They feel the space brothers.
That's impressive.
The entire set is just Truby.
It's two levels.
The beauty part is the floor level, and then you have an elevated level,
which is the hair cutting and washing level.
Okay.
This cast is nothing short of phenomenal.
That just blows my mouth.
There's not a single guy in this thing.
But the way it's done, you don't need one.
The men are mentioned.
And there are sort of like you hear the gunshots of the neighbors and things like that.
What I really dug about the way these six women work together,
there are certain flashes where there's an homage to the big screen version,
because remember there's a TV version of this done a few years ago too with Queen Latifa.
Oh god, I forgot all about that.
But it wasn't, oh, she's just doing Daryl Hannah.
And it was funny because when she did the line of the my ability to do good hair,
that place erupted.
I mean erupted in laughter and applause.
The scene towards the end, where Clary offers up Weezah for someone to take their frustrations out on.
Also, the place went crazy.
But it was a nice nod.
Like some of the deliveries were a nod to that without doing those actresses' roles.
Not so much a nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Right, and there's some subtle differences.
Truvi is African American.
That was the Dalai Parton role in the film.
Right.
Shelby and Malin also, a women of color.
So there was some nice diversity in here.
It all works together better than it should.
Like there's this exceeded my expectations so well.
And it wasn't like I set the bar low.
I'm just a dude.
You know what I mean?
And I said to my target Democrat.
Well, I said in my written review currently located at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
When the movie came out, I worked it.
I just got my job at the movie theater.
And this was my really my first exposure to a chick flick.
Right.
So like it did a ton of business.
But I was kind of like, eh.
I'm 16.
What am I going to know about this film?
It was more or less like the success of the terms of endearment.
Okay.
No, don't freak out.
I never, I never seen it.
Why would I freak out?
I never seen this film.
It's okay.
Now, what's the film about?
It's just about six women that live in this Louisiana, fictional Louisiana parish.
And how their lives work together.
I mean, it is your, it is a typical chick flick.
You know, it takes place over two years.
I believe 84 to 86.
I think is the time frame.
Give her a take.
And are there men in the movie?
Yes.
Okay.
Tom, I mean, Tom Scarritz in the movie.
I did.
The great Tom.
Sam Shepard's in the movie, Dylan McDermott.
Okay.
You know, in the 80s.
And the 80s.
And the 80s.
And the 90s.
And I guess there was a, there was a mini series they did in the early teens.
But it's, it's a beautifully told story.
Number one.
The source material.
I mean, it's, it's daunting.
Because it is a daunting task for six people to pull off this story.
And the dialogue is done in such a way that's so natural.
I guess that this, these six ladies were phenomenal.
Like, they could have put in two thirds of the effort that they did.
And it still would have been good.
But the amount of effort that they put in.
And the way they conveyed every emotion.
Because this thing runs the gambit of emotion.
I'm not afraid to say there's a couple of, I'm not crying, you're crying moments.
Okay.
I'm proud of you, sir.
I'm not afraid of it.
I'm not, I'm not proud of you.
I'm a 45 year old man.
What am I worried about anymore?
You know.
But this.
For the film to be the chick flick that it was, I wouldn't see it now as a chick flick.
If you went to see it.
And at the wily through October 28th.
I'm always amazed at the level of talent that this town has.
And these six ladies knocked it out.
It's just a very impressive ensemble piece.
It really is, and they all work together.
Like, they've literally known each other.
Like, they've known Shelby since she was a toddler.
The dialogue just rolls.
There was a couple of moments that I caught, I caught a certain character.
Like, I could tell, okay, that wasn't the line, but she recovered from it so quickly
that if you weren't paying attention, you never would have caught it.
Did she flop her line?
Did she just improv it on the spot?
She started a line, but she was ahead of herself.
So she just kind of transitioned it back to where it needed to be.
Like, as Dennis Miller once said, just got to the edge and jettate it back to Coolsville.
That's, that's connecting skills.
That's, that's, that's not easy.
But it's, this is just so good.
It's good on every level.
And the, I was a little interested to see it because there's only six actors in this.
I didn't miss the Ancillary Characters.
I didn't.
The way they tell the story and the way they all work together,
I could see the rest of the story in my head, even if I hadn't seen the film.
I could still see those characters in my head and how they were interacting.
That's the genius of this.
I'm intrigued.
I'm definitely intrigued.
I, I mean, I know that when I saw the film, I wasn't really into that, you know.
Again, we were kids.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, you were, you were just about to enter the, either just about you or had entered the service at that point.
89?
Yeah.
That was a year I went in.
And I was, you know, I was a sophomore in high school, because it came out late in the year in November.
Yeah.
I, I think I was home on leave and my mom had it on videotape and she was just like,
I was on cable or something.
Now they don't go into depth like the film does because again, four scenes all takes place.
So things that happened outside of the beauty shop are referenced.
But they're not shown.
Right.
And again, if you don't know the story, I'm not doing spoilers.
Right.
Because there's a huge spoiler in there.
Yeah.
But it's, there's everything about this just absolutely just works.
So what would be your biggest complaint about it?
I don't know that I, I actually, you know, my biggest complaint.
It was an eight o'clock start, not a seven thirty start.
Okay.
Because it was a school night.
Yeah.
And it was 11 o'clock by the time I got home.
That's, I'm old.
That's, that's a, that's a first world problem that I ever was.
Right.
I mean, that, if I've got to, if I've got to have a criticism, that's it.
That's, yeah, that's.
You're really stretching.
I figured to say it was too short.
You didn't get enough of it.
And I said in my review, where's that at?
That's at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
Little early on that, I apologize.
Super.
That during the run of this, if there's an empty seat in that house, it's a travesty.
Wow.
That's, that's some high praise.
That's how good this is.
Like, I feel bad for people that give a hard pass to this production.
And again, this isn't a national touring company.
These ladies are doing this for about four weeks and then they got to move on
because you know, it's next.
It's that time, boys.
Oh, yes it is.
A Christmas Carol's next.
It's coming back, yep.
So they got there.
I mean, I guarantee you, they're already working on it now.
Oh, I'm sure.
And I can't wait to see what they, because remember, they do it differently every year.
Yeah, they curve on.
So I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it this year.
I mean, they've been doing it years before.
But this production.
Bar none.
This is how amazing.
Amazing, amazing, amazing.
I cannot say enough.
How much?
I laughed out loud at certain points.
You know, you'll laugh, you'll cry.
I liked it better than cats.
I would see it over and over again.
So you're saying you like cats.
I very much enjoyed it.
Any other questions?
Yeah, I forget to file it out.
No, let's do this.
Here's how we do the file out.
Now, this is a stage production.
So it's a little bit different.
There are two questions.
Question number one is, what I see this production again.
At the answers, no, we're done here.
But at the answers, yes, this is a stage production.
The follow-up question is, where would I sit?
I'm going to go on the limb here.
Stay with me.
So.
Don, that's your cue.
Yeah, Rob.
Yeah.
Would you see this production again?
Absolutely.
I'd go right now.
You had to give it a little.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
Okay, number two.
What level of seating?
Getting the building.
I don't care where, because number one again.
There's not a bad seat in the entire Wily Theater.
There really isn't.
Number two.
We've set everywhere in that room.
We really, all on the floor level.
I don't know that we've ever been in the balcony.
No, we haven't.
You're right.
But the balconies are beautiful, too.
There's not a bad seat in the whole place.
And there's not even a seat where you,
with the way the stage is set up,
because sometimes we've seen productions where,
oh, I can't see that thing.
There's no obstruction.
There's no obstruction in this.
The way they structure the stage,
everything is, can be seen from everywhere.
Then it's such a cool building.
So even in top corner, whatever.
Yeah, you're fine.
I mean, this is amazing.
And shout out to everybody involved in this.
I want to make sure directed by Joel Farrell.
Everybody from scenic design to choreography,
because there's a little bit of fight choreography in here,
because, you know.
Oh, yeah.
But to the lighting design,
everything in this is top notch.
Robert Harling's tale is given
the absolute atreatment in this.
It is.
That's good.
At the Wiley Theater until October 28, 2018.
And it is the old magnolias.
Broadway, this whole thing?
Yeah, sir.
Yeah, sir.
Yeah, sir.
Thank you.
And we love the AT&T performing arts center.
And they take care of us so much
so we can talk to you guys about it.
Go see this.
This is amazing.
That being said, let's do the plugs.
Visit our website,
the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
You can find my written review there
and so much more.
You can watch our live show there, too,
because that's how we roll with vocal now.
Follow us on social media.
Twitter's at ClubhouseShow.
Everything else is the Clubhouse Podcast.
All three words in that order
or you will wind up somewhere else.
You can follow me on social media,
if you'd like.
Everything is yes to that Rob Irvin
that has built ERVIN.
I am Matt Chad in PG69.
Now, Twitter, I'm at Fawn,
Dongle, F-A-N-D-O-O-O-O-G-O-O.
And also email me at Don at ClubhousePodcast.com.
Listen to me when I was home.
You know what I was trying to say before.
Email Don for information
how we can come do a live show for you.
We love doing live remote shows
and meeting you guys out there in the public
as the kids like to say.
You can email me questions, comments,
concerns, so many go pound sand.
I'm Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
I'm Chad at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Share all the puckers on Pinterest,
because we're morally obligated to say that.
Jules Walmuck waiting on the house
for her husband, Faith Ford waiting on hers.
Our normal show live from Vocal Now Sue is
download the Vocal Now at V-O-K-A-L now
or go to VocalNow.com.
We're live every Sunday night,
7 Eastern 4 Pacific,
and you can see our bright shining faces
because we have a video now.
God help you.
Also keep subscribing,
like, rate, subscribe, and review.
So until next time that we all get together
for Don, for Chad, and the Empire,
I'm Rob Clubhouse's close Brittany Palmer.
I mean, you could have cheated
but they're gonna get her haircut.
You don't know?