Kentucky Wesleyan College’s Wesleyan Theatre Works will present “Steel Magnolias” Nov. 16-18 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 19 at 2 p.m. in the Ralph Fine Arts Center.
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Based on the real-life family of playwright Robert Harling, the story goes beyond Southern charm to the heart of a mother-daughter relationship and the bonds of friendship and support among women. Originally a play before it was a hit movie, the action is set in Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, La., where all the ladies who are anybody are clients. Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when, in the second act, the spunky Shelby, who is a diabetic, risks pregnancy and forfeits her life. The sudden realization of their mortality affects the others and draws on the underlying strength and love which give the play and its characters special qualities to make them touching, funny and marvelously amiable company in good times and bad.