Is Enthusiastic Enough To Bring Audiences To Their Feet

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — Somewhere on a stretch of Highway 57, lying between Frog Level and Smyrna in a state of mind that might be rural North Carolina, or maybe Arkansas or Georgia, there lies a pokey little gas station with an adjoining diner.

Jim, L.M, Jackson and Hank are the guys who work at the station, but who kinda like to take it easy, when it comes to fixing cars, which is why Uncle Dave’s Winnebago is still sitting out back, waiting for them to see what’s wrong with it. (Mebbe we’ll know by next week…)

Prudie and Rhetta are the Dinettes, two sisters waiting for the right man to come along, and who meanwhile make the best pie in the world.

Originally conceived as a joke back in the eighties by Jim Wann and Mark Hardwick, two talented guys who got bored just playing dinner music at a New York steak house and started dressing as gas station attendants. The routine evolved into a cabaret act when Jim’s wife Cass Morgan, and her friend, Debra Monk, put on waitress uniforms and joined them on stage.

Add to the mixture two old friends, John Foley and John Schimmel, who really had known Jim back in Frog Level, and Jim and Mark began writing the songs about the lives of the Pump Boys and Dinettes which evolved into a hugely successful Tony-nominated Broadway musical.

Now local audiences can enjoy the show in the intimacy of Ridgefield Theater Barn, where Shawn Brown, Steve Yudelson, David Bongiorno and Wayne Leiss as The Pump Boys, and Patti Azzara and Diana Matson as The Dinettes, perform a rousing collection of over 20 songs.

The mood is definitely country, shaded with somewhat sophisticated humor, and mixing in a few ballads, all of which serves the purpose of delineating the individual characters of the six  performers.

Shawn Brown is Jim, the leader-spokesman of the group, who knows he messed up when he promised to take Rhetta and her oldest boys to see the season-opener baseball game between Frog Level and Smyrna, and then forgot all about it and went on a fishing weekend (where the rain made the fishing impossible but they could always hang out at the motel, watchin’ color TV and telling lies).

Steve Yudelson is LM, the “hunk” of the group who wants to make it clear to women that he is not about to fuss over them – singing “Serve Yourself” and “Farmer Tan” (women go crazy over tan arms, a white chest and a red neck).

David Bongiorno is Jackson, the quiet one in the group, who reads a book with his dinner, sings a genuinely moving elegy to his beloved grandmother “Mamaw” (“I was a child in your household”) and also belts out a tribute to Mona, the sexy cashier who handles both the auto accessories and the personal hygiene departments at the Five-and-Dime in the mall where he spends his paycheck every Friday.

Wayne Liess, a founding member of the Barn’s resident improv troupe, and definitely the most graceful dancer in the troupe, plays the shy, waddling comic, Hank, who reveals a secret side to his life in T.N.D.P.W.A.M, or “The Night Dolly Parton Was Almost Mine.”

As the sisters, Diana Matson is Rhetta, the more sharply defined of the two. She lets Jim know that she won’t put up with his irresponsible ways in “Be Good or Be Done!” but together with Patti Azzara as Prudie, the girls do a memorable duet called “Sisters” which uses a slide show of family photos as a background to the theme “we spend all our time together, we slept in the same bed, wore the same hand-me-downs-but I never really knew you.”

When two or more of the performers sing together the effect of their harmony ranges from joyous to powerful, making the audience want to clap and stomp, which they did.

(Performances continue on Friday and Saturday evenings through December 16. There are also Sunday matinees planned for November 26 and December 3.

Call the theater’s box office, 203-431-9850, or visit TheaterBarn.org for the full performance schedule and ticket details.)