STAGE REVIEW : ‘PUMP BOYS’ SINGS ITS HEART OUT

Hey. Ever meet the pump boys at the Esso station out there on Highway 57? That’s right next door to that Double Cupp Diner run by those two Cupp sisters, y’know? Prudie and Rhetta. Nice bunch of folks out there near Frog Level, just 15 miles this side of Smyrna, where there are three men--count ‘em, three--to every woman.

Frog Level’s almost as good.

The women there get two guys apiece. And they’re such cute fellas, especially those at the Esso station in their caps and their overalls, lazin’ around, playin’ their music and singin’ their songs.

Prudie’s got her eye on L.M., who can keep books and play a wicked piano almost at the same time. While Rhetta’s heart’s set on sweet Jim--as long as the big lug behaves himself. It’s not a bad life out there on that long, lonesome highway.

In reality, “Pump Boys and Dinettes,” which opened Wednesday at the Las Palmas Theatre, wants to make you feel good about Tiny Town, USA--all those little lost places between Here and There, where a cup of hot coffee will fix just about anything and where life goes on unaffected by summit conferences and the threat of nuclear bombs.

In that sense, “Pump Boys” is a fairy-tale musical and a lot of loud, down-home, country-rock fun. At its heart, it’s a sweet collection of songs, held together by the flimsiest of premises, that started as a lark a half-dozen years ago in a New York basement cabaret.

The performers in “Pump Boys” (John Foley, Mark Harwick, Deborah Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann) had put it together and written all of the songs. The vivid melding of innocence and humor, brashness and wishful thinking, turned it into an underground sensation that eventually went above ground and moved on to other cities.

In this Los Angeles edition (the production comes to us more or less intact from a Chicago run), only two of the original cast members/creators remain (Foley and Wann). And the fun has undergone a subtle but significant change.

This once laid-back, pixilated show has become driven. It has acquired, of all things, a commercial veneer. Instead of innocent, it is now trendy; instead of tender, try tough (especially where those Cupp sisters are concerned). A sign of the times? Perhaps. Those pump boys are still largely lovable and huggable with their big, wide, innocent eyes, but those dinettes . . . hard as peanut brittle.

Maybe that’s what life on Highway 57 eventually does to you, but it gets in the way of the tone of some of the songs, such as the haunting “Sister,” about how difficult it is for siblings to relate.

“Pump Boys and Dinettes” isn’t--or rather, wasn’t--just sharp, clever, with-it numbers such as “Serve Yourself” or “Be Good or Be Gone” or “Drinkin’ Shoes” or “T.N.D.P.W.A.M.” (“The Night Dolly Parton Was Almost Mine”) to be delivered at top speed at the top of your lungs.

Underneath all of the hoopla, it’s also about the softness of “Mamaw,” a nostalgic ballad about death and grandmothers, childhood and passing time--and about lifelong friendships (among the guys), and the pangs of true love (between L.M. and Prudie and Rhetta and Jim), even when it is shouting about needing a vacation, “makin’ love and watchin’ color TV” and getting a “Farmer Tan.”

A good example of how markedly the show’s texture has changed over the years is the song “Tips,” a highlight of the Cupp sisters. What was once playfully ironic takes on a degree of rapaciousness when it’s delivered, as it is here, with the flintiness of cold cash.

Peter Glazer has staged this edition, and perhaps a hardening of its edges is something he wanted. For this theatergoer, it’s a loss.

Certainly, the strictly comic portions fly very high and Joel Raney’s musical direction is crackerjack. Musically, the show cannot be faulted. There’s also excellent contrast among the pump boys with Raney himself delivering a wonderfully deadpan L.M., Foley all boyish bashfulness as Jackson, Wann anything but wan as the red-blooded Jim, and 7-foot tall Ritt Henn as irresistible as a new breed of giant hare in the role of the quasi-silent Eddie, who plays bass the way other people play guitar--resting the instrument across his knee.

Susie Vaughn-Raney (Prudie) and Maggie LaMee (Rhetta), of course, are more problematic--not because they don’t have the patois , the looks and the walk, down to the last flip of the hip, but because the surface tension they project is fundamentally unfriendly.

In other respects, the show’s production values are strong.

The gas-station/diner set (by Christopher Shriver) is a treasure trove of ‘50s collectibles, costumes by Patricia McGourty are impudently in period, and sound and lighting by Jon Gottlieb and Martin Aronstein, respectively, are on target. What the show doesn’t need to do quite as strenuously is sell itself. It should take its cue from those boys at the pumps and relax.

Performances at 1642 N. Las Palmas Ave. run Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Sundays 3 and 7 p.m. Tickets: $21.50 to $26.50. The show runs indefinitely. (213) 466-1767.