STAGE REVIEWS : ‘LITTLE WHOREHOUSE’ IS NOT THE BEST

Well, gawl darn. “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” has two-stepped into the Southampton Dinner Theatre in San Clemente replete with shady ladies in their scanties, shifty politicians, a hooker with a heart of gold and an entire football team of red-blooded American males pawing the ground like penned-up bulls as they descend on the Chicken Ranch bordello, 100 miles west of Houston. So where are the laughs?

They must have taken a wrong turn somewhere between Broadway and San Clemente--or maybe they were never there to begin with. This show is synthetic from the tip of its 10-gallon hat to the toe of its cowboy boot, a composite of synthetic jokes and synthetic passions all dressed up and parading as the real thing but surely not fooling anyone.

The 1978 musical by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson, with music and lyrics by Carol Hall, sets out to provide a rip-roarin’, raunchy, knee-slappin’ good time with the story of a bordello run by the good-hearted, no-nonsense businesswoman Miss Mona. Indeed, the Chicken Ranch has become a town fixture--almost respectable, what with the sheriff and most of the town’s leading (male) citizens paying a friendly call now and again. But when a self-righteous television preacher/reporter (which isn’t clear) looking for a crusade descends on Miss Mona’s establishment with his TV crew, all hell breaks loose.

Or should. There is plenty of energy in this production, directed by Mark Herrier, but the story relies on broad characterizations and trumped-up situations, and they play that way. This version also plays disjointed, perhaps a result of restructuring to accommodate two intermissions.

Cast as the genial Miss Mona is Nanci Hunter, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Dolly Parton, the kindly madam of the critically lambasted 1982 film version. And like Parton, Hunter can carry off a country tune effectively. But due in large part to the staging, Hunter too often seems as much an observer as a participant, singing directly to the audience or stranded upstage, lost in thought. Van Schauer provides much of the rippin’ and roarin’ with plenty of good-ol’-boy bluster as the sheriff with a long-standing “understanding” with Miss Mona. But the vulnerabilities and glimmers of regret that bring these characters to life surface late in the plot, almost obscured by the frenzy of the subplots.

There are glimpses of the romp that this show wants to be, especially in Brad Flanagan’s choreography. And there are others that show it has a heart: “Good Old Girls” is the sheriff’s moving lament to the end of an era (and a relationship); “Hard Candy Christmas” has the working girls assessing their uncertain futures; and Beth Ellen Ivens’ solo “Doatsey Mae” chronicles the bleak life of a small-town diner waitress. Also affecting is Michele Pawk’s performance as Angel, a young mother down on her luck who is befriended by Miss Mona. But the hard-working chorus is simply spread too thin, calling upon the same performers to portray colorful town characters, football players, college cheerleaders, ladies of pleasure, reporters and gospel singers in rapid succession, to disorienting effect.

Complicating matters are enduring acoustical problems; the lyrics often don’t make it to the back row over the volume of the orchestra. Richard Hill designed the effective set, a two-story interior of the Chicken Ranch, with the bedrooms visible behind scrims.

“The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” will play through March 29 at Southampton Dinner Theatre, 140 Avenida Pico, San Clemente. Information: (714) 498-7576.