STAGE REVIEW : ‘110 in Shade’ Is Cool Play in Newport Beach

NEWPORT BEACH —  With “110 in the Shade,” director Beth Hansen, musical director Terence Alaric and producer Maggie Valdespino are putting on one cool play. It takes place on a ranch, and the stage is done up in Dust Bowl Modern: a few crates, some stray hay, the men in overalls and hats. This is a world where women don’t cuss, where one gets dressed up to go a-courting and where the sunsets and sunrises are glorious.

Except this sunrise. It finds ranch owner H.C. (Stephen Reynolds), his daughter Lizzie (Patti McClure) and his two sons Noah (Bill Barratt) and Jimmy (Matt Staiger) in a dry funk on account of a seemingly never-ending heat wave.

In this musical adaptation of N. Richard Nash’s “The Rainmaker,” the heat symbolizes the withered lives of this hardy crew. The real drought is in their hearts; the lack of rain is a lack of love.

The two acts begin innocently enough, with the menfolk helping Lizzie try to land herself a man. The sheriff, File (Jeff Paul), is a likely candidate. But soon we learn that Lizzie is afraid to love because she thinks she is as plain as an old shoe; File is ashamed to admit that his first wife up and left him; Noah is too busy telling Lizzie how unspectacular she is. . . .

Salvation of sorts arrives in the guise of black-garbed self-professed rainmaker Starbuck (Tom Hafner), a wanted con man who, among other things, gets Lizzie to love, Jimmy to believe in himself and Noah (wasn’t he involved in a deluge somewhere?) to lighten up a bit.

The action skips merrily along, carried effectively by the musical score, a cross between “Oklahoma” and Marty Robbins’ “El Paso.”

McClure is exceptional as a spinster-in-the-making who, once she lets her flaxen hair down, brightens up the prairie. Her renditions of “Simple Little Things” and, especially, the robust, honky-tonk “Raunchy” are especially memorable. She is adept at conveying both her agony (“Love Don’t Turn Away” and “Old Maid”) and her ecstasy (“Is It Really Me?”).

Hafner is well-cast as an idealistic, rootless dreamer. A poet-lariat, as it were, he sings a mean “Every Thing Beautiful Happens at Night” and is at his head-in-the-big-sky best with “Melisande.” Staiger, convincing as Jimmy, belts out a rousing “Little Red Hat” with his pert gal Snookey (Leesa DiLallo).

By the way, Lizzie, manless when the curtain rises, must choose between two men at the end.

When it rains, it pours.

‘110 IN THE SHADE’

A Newport Theatre Arts Center production. Directed by Beth Hansen. With Patti McClure, Tom Hafner, Jeff Paul, Stephen Reynolds, Bill Barratt, Matt Staiger and Leesa DiLallo. Musical director: Terence Alaric. Producer: Maggie Valdespino. Stage manager: Nancy Staiger. Set designer: Todd Faux. Costume designer: Dyke Quderkirk. Lighting designer: Kevin M. Sorg. Lighting technicians: Kate Staiger, Ed Kulpa, Colleen Fredericks, Jackie Wyatt, Larry Davis and Mike Valdespino. Sound technician: Nancy Staiger. Continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through March 3 at 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach. Tickets: $12. (714) 631-0288.