Shower power

Merrimack revives The Rainmaker

by Carolyn Clay

THE RAINMAKER By N. Richard Nash. Directed by Tom Markus. Set design by Peter Harrison. Costumes by Frances N. McSherry. Lighting by Richard Devin. With John Newton, Tony Ward, Tommy Day Carey, Amy Tribbey, Jim Loutzenhiser, Joseph R. Owens, and Peter Hermann. At the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell Wednesday through Sunday through December 26.

It's raining men in Lowell, where drought-country wallflower Lizzie Curry gets to choose between precipitation- peddling con man Starbuck and divorced sheriff's deputy File as Merrimack Repertory Theatre lets loose the spigots of N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker once again. It's also raining revivals in Lowell, as the MRT follows a meticulous staging of Clifford Odets's Depression-set Awake and Sing with this genial production of Nash's 1954 romantic comedy.

The original Broadway rendition starred Geraldine Page as man-deprived Lizzie letting her hair down for an inspirational stranger. The 1956 film featured Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster. In 1963 the work was re-created as a musical, 110 in the Shade. And a current Broadway revival casts Woody Harrelson as the dream-mongering Starbuck.

So what gives with all these reincarnations of The Rainmaker, a play that seemed a bit soggy when it first appeared? Writing about it in the New York Times in '54, a bemused Brooks Atkinson opined, "On the whole, it is a lusty antic in a popular-comedy vein. The romantic interludes will do no one any permanent harm." Which, I suppose, is true. But, really, who needs it? The Rainmaker is big-hearted hokum, fun to laugh at but -- with its Roy Rogers-era Western family, unmarriageable-woman crisis, and big-talking con-man catalyst -- hard to take seriously. In my view, the only thing that might redeem this overblown fable would be for Starbuck to make it rain coffee.

That said, director Tom Markus and the Merrimack cast put a sturdy saddle on the old warhorse. John Newton, Tony Ward, and Tommy Day Carey are the Curry men, well-meaning widower H.C., bossy brother Noah, and enthusiastic knucklehead Jim, whose attentions are divided between the lack of rain that is killing their cattle and the lack of a gentleman caller for Lizzie. When a supper invitation to the local sheriff's deputy fails, H.C. decides to take a chance on the itinerant "rainmaker" who shows up at the door promising to produce precipitation for $100. If Lizzie's never to have a husband, he reckons, she may as well have a fling. But smart, practical Lizzie and ranch-running brother Noah want nothing to do with obvious faker Starbuck, whose very moniker is a phony. No matter, the rainmaker soon has H.C. and Jim carrying out ridiculous tasks as part of his H2O dance. Part ritual, part snipe hunt, this unabashed display of con artistry (meant to convey the message that, if you take a leap of faith, you must do it with both feet) is at least amusing. So is Carey's cocky, affable take on less-than-swift brother Jim.

But when Noah, thinking it kind to be cruel, tells Lizzie to her face that she's destined to be an "old maid," the shattered sister decides, like her father, to take a chance on Starbuck. In a Glass-Menagerie-meets-Hee-Haw scene in the barn, she and Starbuck exchange kisses and dreams, his outlandish, hers small but precious. The idea is that the con man's amorous attentions, however guff-ridden and spur-of-the-moment, restore Lizzie's self-esteem. In the end, however, she must choose between the romantic fakery of the rainmaker and the taciturn steadiness of the deputy. So, is the suspense killing you?

I must admit that the whole thing -- with its cowboy menfolk and its talk of "gettin' a man like a man gets got" -- struck me as dated and absurd. But the audience seemed to like it. They even fell for Peter Hermann's coltish ham of a Starbuck, who's more lanky and geeky than sexy or visionary. Of course, it can't be easy playing a bedroom-eyed borderline criminal who's also a symbol of hope. Amy Tribbey is an aptly tense, enthusiastic Lizzie (though far from plain), and once fertilized by the manure of Starbuck's courtship and counsel, she blossoms sweetly. But there's little chemistry between Hermann's hot-lipped motivational speaker and Tribbey's quick-thawing spinster. And without that spark, The Rainmaker loses the little bit of lightning that might brighten its colossal storm of folksiness.