As a playwright, local actor/writer Bob Bedore may not be as prolific (yet) as Neil Simon, but he's already learned two hard-and-fast rules for cranking out Family Entertainment:
Keep it simple.Keep things moving.
His "Gunfight at Glitter Gulch or How the West Was Fun" is a Grade A sendup of those wonderful old Grade B Westerns, the kind that used to keep kids coming back again and again to the Saturday matinees at the Roxy or the Orpheum.
Shades of Hoot Gibson, Lash LaRue and Rex Allen!
Virtually every cliche imaginable turns up sooner or later in Bedore's musical melodrama. Oh, I could quibble about a couple of minor problems - a couple of the songs don't work all that well and the lighting was pretty dim during a couple of sequences, but - over all - this is a brand new show that would stack up very well against any of the Peter Van Slyke pieces the Playhouse has frequently staged.
As expected, the comedy is cornball and the plot is hokey, but audiences don't flock to the Desert Star Playhouse for the kind of artsy, cerebral drama one might find off-Broadway.
The real stars of this show (Bedore's talented cast notwithstanding) are Frank Ackerman's scenery and P. Randy Barker's clever special effects. Show after show, I am continually impressed with what Ackerman and Barker are able to accomplish in a theater that is not particularly state-of-the-art.
For example, one of the most laughable things about the old "sagebrushers" from the 1940s and '50s was being able to count just how often the good guys and the bad guys rode past the very same scenery. They do, here, too, thanks to Ackerman and Barker's constantly rotating mural. (And if you thought "barrel racing" was just a rodeo event, wait'll you see the ponies during the hilarious chase scene in Act Two.)
Bedore not only wrote and directed, he also has a major role in the show as the heroic Andy Dobbs. (Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've found, having the same person act in, direct and write a show results in a production that is artistically compromised - but "Glitter Gulch" is a pleasant exception. Bedore doesn't use his script to upstage anyone and he has developed into a fine comedy talent.)
Also in the show are Jack Drayton as the villainous Frank Barton and Nan Torbenson as Lucy Starr, his partner in crime. Their boos are well-deserved.
Ken Grazier portrays Lucious Bustice (who may or may not be embezzling funds from his own bank) and Russell Peacock is Davey Bishop, who has drifted from job to job to job (his gold mine company didn't pan out; his plumbing business went down the drain). Bishop needs money, but will desperation lead him to cutting a deal with Barton?
Ron Johnson does a fine job as Doc Severson, with Melissa Bridge Porter as his daughter, Krista, and Kimberlee Hart as Wilma Souther-by, newly hired as a teller at the Glitter Gulch Bank & Trust and wooed by Dobbs (who - in the best Old Western tradition - is torn between her and his faithful horse).
This is pure tongue-in-cheek fare and full of the kind of comedy Salt Lake families expect at Desert Star.
The post-show olios, directed and choreographed by Rafael Colon Castanera of Park City Performances, have a "Fun in the Sun" theme. Most of the routines work fairly well and the ensemble bits are nicely choreographed - which should not be surprising, considering Castanera's expertise.
Most disappointing was the "Begin the Beguine" solo. While it does have a tropical beat, it doesn't strike me as being in the "fun-in-the-sun" mode, and it ran way too long. Ron Johnson is a fine soloist, but the dimly lit dancers on the opposite side of the stage were distracting.
The funniest comedy sketch was the one where Bedore changed from his slacks into a pair of bathing trunks - right there in plain sight.