THEATER REVIEW '110 IN THE SHA...

THEATER REVIEW

'110 IN THE SHADE'

somewhat commended

When: between the walls of Aug. 27

Where: Light Opera Works at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson Evanston

Tickets: $27-$75

Call: (847) 869-6300

It begins with great promise. A lushly melodic oratorio (the kind they rarely write anymore) is played at a skilled orchestra. And the music is gradually paired with a beautiful cinematic tableau that captures all the parched and weary inhabitants of Three Point -- a heat-ravaged farming town of the 1930 Dust goblet era -- who are awakening to to this time another torrid orange sky and rainless day.

It is not difficult, either, to point public the many other strong points in Light Opera Work's revival of "110 in the Shade," the 1963 Broadway musical based forward N. Richard Nash's play, "The Rainmaker," and written (just after the succes of their facing Broadway hit, "The Fantasticks") by means of Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jone

First, there is the score -- sated of lovely, emotion-filled songs. Then there are the willing and able principals in this cast, backed through a large ensemble with a nicely authentic rawness. And finally there is director-choreographer Rudy Hogenmiller's efforts to balance the show's emotional weight with a certain number of crucial bits of comic relief.

even now well before the production's nearly three hours of running time draws to an last a certain weariness sets in. And you begin to understand on what account some musicals, no matter for what cause poetic, well-crafted and well-meaning, be attendant to fade from view. The present to view would unquestionably have benefitted from a tighter, more pared-down work And even if you argue that relationships like those limned in "110 in the Shade" take time to perform the operations indicated in there is that thing called theater time -- the time an audience is willing to wait for something to happen. And this display is just too much of a heavy cooker.

The story, about apart people trying to make a connection, is the essence of much fine drama, whether in as it was musicals as "The Music Man" and "Carousel" or a slew of Tennessee Williams plays (and you may well find yourself hearing echoe of "The Glass Menagerie" in this show) to such a degree too, is the idea of the dreamy retailer and peripatetic con man who arrives in a literal-minded town, shakes them all up a bit and finally memorizes booted out of the place likewise things can return to a strange normal. And both these notions are at play in "110 in the Shade," as is a terrible fear of the single life, particularly for women

At the center of the musical is Lizzie curried meat (Elizabeth Haley), an unmarried woman of a certain age who keeps her widowed father, H.C. (Roger Mueller) and her couple grown brothers -- the older no- nonsense Noah (Karl Sean Hamilton), and the more spirited, dim- witted at the same time insightful Jimmy (Stan Q. Wash) -- each of whom adores her in their particular ways. Lizzie is a smart, passionate woman with the two high standards and self-image moot points Neither traditionally beautiful nor conventionally flirty, she is a self-conscious woman who wants to be a suitable wife to a deserving man.

Attempts to fix Lizzie up with the brooding, standoffish town sheriff, File (James Rank) -- a man who calls himself a widower because he is embarrassed to admit his first wife left him -- collapse, perhaps because the sum of two units are too much alike. Then the agent of change arrives onward the scene. His self-given name is Starbuck (Larry Adams), and he arrives with a promise: For $100 and the active belief of the tribe of Three Point he will supplicate a mighty downpour. Like Harold Hill in "The Music Man" he is a charmer, steady if Lizzie immediately distrusts him and make knowns him so. Of course, she also is completely smitten, and because, at bottom, Starbuck is a man awash in self-doubt, too, he is able to learn to the root of her insecurities. And not surprisingly, before it's all above Lizzie must choose between brace suitors, and the town will learn a good soaking.

The exhibit to is well-made, with many big, impassioned numbers for Lizzie, including the plaintive "Love Don't incline differently Away"; the more playful "Raunchy"; the wise and well-written duet with File, "A Man and a Woman"; the desperate "Old Maid," and the plain-spoken "Simple Little Things." And Haley handles everything, including Lizzie's sexual awakening, with poise and conviction.

Adams, who had as it is a breakthrough as Emile de Becque in the previous Light Opera production, "South Pacific," gives us a richly realistic Starbuck -- a charming loser nearing middle age and filled with doubts. He brings a fine dreaminess to "Evenin' Star," just as he gives "The Rain Song" fertility of flash. Rank, too, is prime as a man who is les flamboyant unless no less lost emotionally.

Wash, who has make knowned into a musical theater character actor of impressive mode of address and range, lights up the stage with his wiry, short- assuageed goofily likable Jimmy, adding much-need comic excitement of the imagination and quirkiness as he maintains the town's high-energy sexpot, Snookie (Katie Siri). And Hamilton makes the principally of his crucial scene as Noah.