STAGE REVIEW : ‘Li’l Abner’ Plays It Big, Boisterous

“Peanuts” made its way to the stage. Even characters in “Doonesbury” have found theater life. Now if someone could only figure out how to put “The Far Side” under lights.

But it was “Li’l Abner” that started it all. Al Capp’s popular comic strip hit Broadway in the late 1950s as a hee-hawingly loud musical, winning audiences with its combination of hokum and satire. Norman Panama and Melvin Frank’s adaptation was such a favorite, it was turned into a movie in 1959.

At the Newport Theatre Arts Center, director Tim Nelson does the customary in bringing this bunch of backwater misfits to life--meaning the performances are almost painfully boisterous and unbridled, the colors are right out of the Sunday comics, and the tempo hardly ever relaxes.

The production has the requisite movement. Trouble is, the show stumbles as much as it strides, especially when the ensemble finds center stage.

The leads don’t always do right by their big numbers, either, but at least they generate the necessary flavor and make obvious what these very obvious characters are all about.

Jon Gale is properly muscle-bound and muscle-headed as the archly good hero of all the silliness. He’s the hickest of the hicks, a guy whose only worry before the government declares Dogpatch, U.S.A., a missile-testing zone is whether he can avoid the marrying grasp of the ample Daisy Mae.

As Daisy Mae, Jennifer Simpson is lovable enough; Sarah Ann Crawford and Robert Hopkins as Mammy and Pappy Yokum are plenty goofy, kind of like Ma and Pa Kettle on diet pills; and Ron Samson bellows at the right thug-ish pitch as Earthquake McGoon.

What has redeemed “Li’l Abner” over the years are its swipes at bad politicians and bureaucratic incompetence, and its portrait of Big Business as purely despicable. Jim Reiss as the money-mad General Bullmoose holds up his end of the satire, as does Ron Lipp as the opportunistic Senator Phogbound.

‘LI’L ABNER’

A Newport Theatre Arts Center production of the Norman Panama and Melvin Frank musical based on Al Capp’s comic strip. Directed by Tim Nelson. With Jon Gale, Jennifer Simpson, John L. Moreno, Sarah Ann Crawford, Robert Hopkins, Ron Samson, Jim Reiss, Ron Lipp, Robyne Pardue, Steve Moritsugu, Margie Taylor, Steve Simon, Alan Bernath, Stan Benoit, Robert Felde, Brett Metzger, Gordon Marhoefer, Brenda McCormick, Barbara Tibbles, Kim MacClean, Marci Anne Schmidt, Monica Suter, Colleen Dawn, Marjorie McCauley and Jann Perkins-Norton. Plays Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. through March 5 at 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach Tickets: $10. (714) 631-0288.