Special to the Times Union
By Michael Eck

Robert Harling's "Steel Magnolias" is one of those plays that every theater eventually gets around to producing. It's easy, it's crowd-pleasing and it has the convenient marquee value of a classic tear-jerking film behind it. It's currently on the boards at Curtain Call Theatre in a fine production from resident director Steve Fletcher. "Magnolias," you'll probably remember, is less of a tale than a tone poem about six women in the American South.

Truvy Jones (Ruth Martin) runs a beauty salon -- in a converted carport -- in Chinquapin, La. The local ladies gather there to chat about their lives, their men and the latest hairstyles. It's not Shakespeare and it doesn't try to be, but the play does have a comfortable honesty and it's rich in both laughs and poignancy.

Harling hangs the through-line on Shelby Eatonton-Latcherie, a young woman whose diabetes is revealed when she nearly passes out in Truvy's chair on the day before her wedding. Her journey is followed through four scenes which hint at her mild marriage troubles, her difficult childbirth and the ultimate complications of her disease.

Shelby is played -- remarkably -- by Erin Waterhouse, who is not only making her Curtain Call debut in the show, but her stage debut. You wouldn't know it if it didn't say it in her playbill bio. She easily holds her own with an experienced cast that includes Martin as the easy-going Truvy; Lezlie Dana as Shelby's mother, M'Lynn Eatonton; Whitney Kaufman as born-again stylist Annelle Dupuy-Desoto; Joanne Westervelt as the wealthy mayor's widow, Clairee Belcher; and Paula Ginder as the ornery Ouiser Boudreaux.

"Magnolias" is a true ensemble piece and the women play off each other well...Fletcher draws out a very naturalistic performance
that perfectly fits Harling's script.

Michael Eck, a freelance writer from Albany, is a regular contributor to the Times Union.