Lawson Taitte

Contemporary's show reveals strengths in second act

03:42 PM CDT on Monday, June 12, 2006

By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News

Stanton's Garage begins with a bang – literally, with all kinds of inconsequential mayhem in the first scene. The second act contains lots of amusing stuff. In between, however, very little happens.

JUSTIN COOK/DMN

Harry Reinwald (left) and Micah Pediford play mechanics in Stanton's Garage.

If you should nod off before intermission, take heart. Things do perk up.

On Friday, Contemporary Theatre of Dallas opened the area premiere of Joan Ackermann's comedy, directed by Cheryl Denson. It's on the same side of the city-mouse/country-mouse divide as Green Acres: rich folks in Hicksville. A Chicago surgeon (Sue Loncar) on her way to a wedding finds her car won't start in a tiny Missouri town. The denizens of the local garage keep telling her they can fix it, but the best mechanic (Nye Cooper), convinced he has a brain tumor, wanders off. The doctor's soon-to-be-stepdaughter, Frannie (Sara Menix), takes an interest in the youngest employee (Micah Pediford).

We spend that whole first act watching the doctor get more and more upset. Her aloofness makes her an unappealing character, though she warms up considerably in the second half. Ms. Loncar's final scenes with another stranded motorist (Tony Martin) and with Frannie, in fact, are the best things in the show.

Mr. Pediford and Ms. Menix have a nice chemistry. Harry Reinwald as the senior mechanic seems to think that Tuna, Texas, is somewhere in Missouri. He's funny, but he has adopted some of writer-actor Jaston Williams' mannerisms wholesale. Barbara Bierbrier makes his estranged wife seem simple-minded rather than worried. Ouida White plays a well-meaning busybody who has a funny saying for every occasion.

Ms. Ackermann's script, once it finally settles in, weaves its intertwined plots with a certain delicacy: Things don't work out too neatly. Ms. Denson has recruited a number of fresh faces for the cast, and Ms. Loncar gets a role that frequently brings out the best in her (though her big emotional outbursts could be more convincing). And you've never seen a more tackily lovable rural garage than the one Randel Wright has designed.

E-mail ltaitte@dallasnews.com

Through July 9 at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, 5601 Sears St. Runs 160 mins. $24, students and seniors $19. 214-828-0094, www.contemporary theatreofdallas.com.