Six terrific actresses strut their comedic stuff as a sextet of Louisiana women whose delicate exteriors hide tough-as-steel cores in the Group Rep’s season-opening crowd-pleaser, Robert Harling’s Southern-fried charmer Steel Magnolias.

There’s big-haired hair stylist extraordinaire Truvy (Cynthia Payo), joined in her mission to beautify 50% of the local population by quirky 19-year-old new-on-the-job assistant Annelle (Faye Reynolds).

Tops among Truvy’s list of loyal clients is M’Lynn (April Audia), a small-town career woman whose daughter Shelby (Savannah Mortenson) is getting married today, leaving them both in dire need of wedding dos as only Truvy can do.

Local grande dame Clairee’s (Sara Shearer) recent widowhood has her living life on her own for the first time in five decades and not yet sure what to do about this unsolicited freedom.

Last but not least is lovable grouch Ouiser (Janet Wood), “in a very bad mood for forty years” and ever on the rampage against something or someone, most recently M’Lynn’s rifle-toting husband.

Unlike its 1989 movie adaptation, which took the action out into the fictional Louisiana town of Chinquapin and added male characters like M’Lynn’s husband Drum and son-in-law Jackson, Harling’s 1987 theatrical original stays comfortably inside Truvy’s Beauty Spot and sticks to the six titular Magnolias. After all, who needs men to clutter up the stage when you’ve got six gals who’ve been friends through thick and thin and are just about the most entertaining women you’ll ever have the good fortune to spend two-and-a-half hours with.

Not an awful lot happens over the course of the play’s two acts (with one major exception). It’s mostly a lot of very funny Southern talk, filled with the kind of wit, wisdom, and one-liners that women south of the Mason-Dixon line are famous for. (Truvy’s got the best of the latter with quips like “Honey, time marches on and eventually you realize it is marchin’ across your face,” but Clairee comes in a close second with “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!” and other similar bons mots.)

On the other hand, let one of them suffer a personal tragedy and she will be surrounded with oceans of love and support to ease the pain.

All of this has been delighting and touching audiences for nearly 40 years now, and with director Kathleen R. Delaney eliciting performance gems from her scintillating sextet, it does so again in 2026.

Payo gives Truvy the same kind of homespun Backwoods Barbie charm that Dolly Parton brought to the role on screen, and you’d never guess that Welsh import (and Our Town breakout star) Faye Reynolds wasn’t from the Deep South in her engagingly quirky take on Annelle.

Shearer’s zesty Clairee and Wood’s ornery Ouiser may be petite of stature but they are clearly forces to be reckoned with in Chinquapin, the latter earning the evening’s biggest laugh when she offers up her frenemy to get the comeuppance she deserves.

As for Audia and Mortenson’s M’Lynn and Shelby, not only do the dynamic duo look like they actually could be mother and daughter, they inhabit their roles with equal parts charm, grit, and grace.

Finally, a clever directorial touch has uncredited “token male” Rob Schaumann popping in late at night to reset the stage without cluttering it up.

Mareli Mitchel-Shields’ beauty salon set is the best I’ve seen at the Group Rep since The Curious Savage a year ago, and Noemi Barrera lights it with appropriate warmth.

Angela Manke’s costumes evoke 1980s small-town Louisiana to nostalgic effect; Krys Fehervari’s wigs, while appropriately ‘80s big, are a mixed bag; and Cathy Diane Tomlin’s sound design features not only some amusing gunshot effects but AM radio tunes that add to the production’s charm.

Steel Magnolias is produced for the Group Rep by Denise Downer and Mitchel-Shields. Taylor Wesselman is assistant director. Nora Feldman is publicist. Tomlin is stage manager.

With a script as timelessly charming as Robert Harling’s, and with as effervescent a cast as the one assembled here, the Group Rep’s 2026-27 season is off to a bang-up start with Steel Magnolias.

The Group Rep Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.
www.thegrouprep.com

–Steven Stanley
March 20, 2026
Photos: Doug Engalla

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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Robert Harling, The Group Rep