I always get tickled when I see non-southerners talking about STEEL MAGNOLIAS -- or for that matter, CRIMES OF THE HEART. What non-southerners don't know is that all the characters in those two plays are so ON-POINT, so EXACT, etc. Baby, those aren't caricatures at ALL -- there are people like that in every southern town. I know women (and men, in the case of CRIMES) that ARE those people. My mother, for example, is "M'Lynn" -- no doubt about it.
I'll never forget the first time I saw STEEL at the Lucille Lortel. Within the first two minutes of the play, I sat there with my mouth open -- they had it so right, even down to the hair and the costuming. It was strange, being so far removed from the south in the middle of the Village, and to sit there and watch that show. It remains a favorite memory of mine.
The cadence of southern is a form unto its own. I remember seeing an interview with Annie Potts, talking about doing Designing Women. Potts is from Franklin, KY, as you know. Anyway, she said she leaped at the chance to do the series because, after doing a bunch of movies where she played weirdos and such, it was such a relief to get back to her roots. She said she knew instinctively how to do a joke, or dialogue, "southern".
Okay, enough lecture. I'll stop.
Updated On: 3/4/05 at 09:45 AM
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