The Rainmaker

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Running a ranch is no picnic, even if it is a highly successful cattle ranch. Always so much to do keeping things up to snuff. To manage the ranch well, the key is organized discipline. When the cattle are dying off because of a serious draught, it is rather difficult to keep the white face disciplined. You might cut them some slack since they need every ounce of energy to keep breathing. Now, the family is a different matter. Keeping the family disciplined can become a full time job.

Noah (Jake Mechling), Starbuck (Robert Kramer), Lizzie (Boni McIntyre), H.C. (Pete Nelson) in a scene from The Rainmaker.

At least it is for Noah Curry, played with sharp temperament and finely tuned discipline by Jake Mechling.

In Miners Alley current production of N. Richard Nash’s beloved play The Rainmaker, Noah takes little time to feel much of anything, and he must keep everyone in line with an iron fist. This is one of Mechling’s strongest roles to date where he definitely shows his artistic colors.

First if all, he has his younger brother, Jimmy wonderfully carved into reality by Jason Burnside. Jimmy rides his own teenage kite. He wants to have fun; he loves the dances and socialization that doesn’t come easy in the middle of the Texas sun. His teen-age hormones run with abandon enjoying every minute. Then there’s the girl, with a few wild hairs growing around the nape of her neck allowing her to drive fast, wear bright colors, and play hard, in apparently more ways then one. Jimmy is smitten to the core of his being, irritating Noah every which way. Jimmy, according to Noah, should be and act as he thinks Jimmy should be and act. No slack allowed.

Controlling Jimmy is no laughing matter, which is probably at the core of the issue since Jimmy knows how to have fun. Noah sees his job as corralling Jimmy to “keep him safe and out of trouble.”

The major problem is Lizzie. A young lady, not married and no prospects brings shame and anxiety to the 1935 family. Noah worries abut the family and worries about what is going to happen to Lizzie. She’s plain, and no one is going to want to marry a plain looking girl. Boni McIntyre knows just how to embrace Lizzie “to make her real.” Definitely a strong independent woman, but to be an old maid is a crime against society.

Directed by Paige L. Larson and Rick Bernstein, this production of The Rainmaker trembles with hope, desire, fear, anxiety, tension, and humor in spite of Noah.

Lizzie has just returned from a contrived trip to Peddlyville to spend a week with relatives hoping that sparks can be generated with a variety of cousins. Hope sits up straight when Lizzie talks about the fun time she had with one cousin, then gushes through the floor when she tells the family he is only nine years old.

Although Lizzie is his biggest challenge, he also has to contend with his Father, HC played by Pete Nelson with the strength and patience of Job. He has to be to keep Noah in line. He constantly tells Lizzie how pretty she is, but with the counterattacks by Noah, believing her father meets with constant doubt. Nelson grooms HC with devotion to his ranch and to his very different offspring. He’s not as worried over Lizzie as Noah. She could, after all, stay on at the ranch. That only ignites Noah’s sensibilities.

Grabbing onto one hope, the three guys ride into town to visit the Deputy Sheriff, File, who has issues of his own. Refusing their invitation to dinner, he knows what they are up to. Christian Mast molds himself into awkward, uncertain, attempts to keep it all together fabricating truth and fiction with careful construction. Having built a wall for protection, marriage is not on his mind. He has his reasons, which crumble into truth.

In a moment of heavy disappointment, there appears a stranger. Bill Starbuck strides into the Curry living room as though he owns the prairie. For a hundred dollars, he can make it rain he says. He‘s done it many times before. No he won‘t divulge his secret, but for the hundred dollars he will demonstrate his abilities. Robert Kramer dyed his blond hair black for the role. With his red shirt and black hair, his blue eyes take center stage. Many have played Starbuck, and many more will, but at this moment in time and history, Kramer owns Strabuck with his buoyant confidence. HC figures he has nothing to lose. He loses that much money at poker night. Noah is horrified, Jimmy intrigued, and Lizzie too caught up in her own world to give him much thought. The fireworks begin.

Richard Pegg designed the spectacular set of the Texas appointed living space with its brash Western flavor. To the right of the stage sits the Sheriff‘s office, and to the left is the entrance to the tack room where Starbuck is allowed to stay. Pegg literally worked miracles with the set. Because of a previous production, he had less than one week to turn the bare stage into 1935 Texas. Finishing painting 45 minutes before the Opening Night curtain, he warned the cast to stay away from certain parts of the set, as well as some members of the audience. It wasn‘t as perfect as he wanted it to be, but when the lights came up, it is difficult to imagine it could be any more perfect. It is a solid home for The Rainmaker.

Issues get tangled with everyone and there‘s Noah smack in the middle. The Sheriff played by Todd Sorenson begins to put two and two together and comes looking for Starbuck who is wanted in other places for not exactly living up to his promises. This is Sorenson‘s stage debut and he just needs to stand up straight, think sheriff, and embrace his confidence. He doesn‘t look like a sheriff or act like a sheriff, but then who knows what a sheriff in a small Texas town looked an acted like in 1935. It certainly wouldn‘t be a John Wayne type, but then probably no town anywhere ever had a John Wayne type when you really think about it. Sorenson plays with some heavy stage hitters. By the end of the run he could possibly out-John-Wayne John Wayne.

Starbuck is a con man inside and out. Kramer makes sure he has the oiled showmanship coated over thick armor. Starbuck however is able to give Lizzie what no one else can: respect for herself, confidence, the ability to dream, belief in herself, and know from the depth of her soul she is pretty.

Even when he admits to her he is nothing but a con man that he never ever made it rain, that he hasn‘t the foggiest idea how to go about it, she is able to break through the faŤade and hear Starbuck.

For that reason, The Rainmaker will always be a favorite play. Everyone should have a Starbuck tucked in his/her pocket somewhere. No less today than when it was first written in our fast paced technological society where self esteem comes harder than keeping up with the technology. Dreams are wanted and needed and sometimes all it takes is an elusive Starbuck.

What makes this production a great one is the cast refusing to rely on a favorite story with trusted lines and “seeing it for real,” turning the characters inside out making them their own. You believe them, and that after all is what it is all about. Yes, the story is filled to the brim with warm fuzzies, cuddly kittens and warms socks, but it seems to me we can use all of the warm fuzzies, cuddly kittens and warm socks we can find. There are enough Noah Curry’s in our world to keep us off balance. See it, drink it, embrace it, laugh with it, enjoy it, hear it, and carry the dreams and the “seeing it for real” tucked neatly in a pocket.