Six remarkable actors play six strong characters in SLO Rep’s current production of “Steel Magnolias,” the 1987 play by Robert Harling that was reworked into a 1989 film starring six big-box-office names (re-made in 2012 with another six big-box-office names, if you’re interested). Save yourself the streaming fees, though . . .
So . . . if the initial performance of SLO Rep’s current homage to the 1980s is any indication, the theatre has a hit on its hands with its production of film-turned-Broadway-phenomenon “Xanadu.”
So . . . first there are the sounds. The wailing of sirens, the swell of the sea, the chiming of a ship’s bell (or is it a church bell, perhaps?). Surely these are the sounds of despair, or loneliness, or sorrow. But then comes the sound of the first words uttered in the latest SLO REP production—a profound but relatively commonplace query: “How are the children?”
So . . . director Kevin Harris must have had his hands full as the person in charge of wrangling the two talented performers now gracing the SLO REP stage into the theatre’s production of “Always…Patsy Cline.”
So . . . “Double, double, toil and trouble . . .” chant the three witches during the opening scene of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth.
Toil, trouble and tragedy may be key themes of the play, but they are not descriptive of the fine, fluid and intensely physical work now on display in the Academy of Creative Theatre’s production at SLO Rep in downtown San Luis Obispo.
All told, SLO REP’s production is “A Christmas Story” to remember, and to remember fondly.
There is much in SLO REP’s “Deathtrap” to amuse an audience looking for an evening of made-up murder and mayhem.
Whether the lovers in “The Fantasticks” end up with a happy ending isn’t really the point; by show’s end you’ve gotten the message that “without the hurt the heart is hollow.”