The small towns of Kentucky are not common sites for plays with even a little sophistication, but with an apparent goal of some easy laughs, it’s not difficult for playwright Arlene Hutton to appeal to a different audience, the kind that laughs at bad grammar, ignorance, religiously uptight attitudes, people who might be termed hoosiers, or rednecks, or hillbillies.
That’s the unfortunate side effect of "Last Train to Nibroc," which opened over the weekend and will conclude on Saturday. It’s at the The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Drive, adjacent to the Memorial Presbyterian Church. Alexander, by the way, runs west off Skinker Boulevard, immediately south of Wydown Boulevard.
Set during World War II, Hutton began with a premise that might have worked, if she had left the story without the search for cheap laughs. Raleigh (an earnest Ted Drury) has just received a medical discharge from the service and is riding a train from California to his Kentucky home, where he will continue his quest to become a writer. May (an often rude and contentious Emily Piro) is heading home to a nearby Kentucky town from a Christmas holiday visit with her fiancé, in the Army, and will continue her work as a teacher, though she talks abut becoming a missionary. By the way, if we’re in December, even on a trans-continental train, May should not be wearing a summer frock, nor Raleigh a summer uniform.
After some back-and-forth, with a nicely flirty undertone (remember that it is 1940), and the intermission, the two begin challenging one another as the second act begins, 18 months later. May charges him with not writing, corrects his grammar. He criticizes her choice of words and ridicules the fact that she has no idea of the conditions under which she will work and the life she will lead once she becomes a missionary.
Too often the humor is delivered with a broadsword rather than a saber, and the attacks on one another’s families descend into some outright cruelty.
Both Piro and Drury turn in bright, impressive performances, doing good work with what they have, but Hutton never gives them enough clay to properly mold a character, or to reach a conclusion that seems real.
At The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Drive, through Saturday.
–Joe