THEATER REVIEW : Trio of Singing Sisters Finds High-Jinks While on the Run : The lively cast at Moorpark Melodrama performs pop and rock songs during the raucous tale set in the 1930s.

Don’t be deceived by its title: the Moorpark Melodrama’s “Sisters on the Run” is not one of the current spate of shows featuring nuns that have been popping up across Ventura County. These are the Redding Sisters, a trio of New York singers, sometime in the 1930s.

Melodrama regular Tim Kelly’s script is augmented (as usual for the company) by several pop and rock songs, performed by an energetic cast. It’s a bright couple of hours, and one of the group’s more consistently entertaining shows in recent memory.

Rose, Lily and Daisy Redding (Jana Kovalivker, Bonnie DeGrood, Susanna Davis) work with crooner Eddie Grand (Tony Briant), whose agent, Larry Penn (Will Shupe II) is in trouble with the mob. After inadvertently witnessing an apparently fatal altercation between Penn and a gangster, the sisters high-tail it for the Ozarks.

They land in Mulekick, a town whose people would look to Dogpatch as the Big City. Cultures collide and, inevitably, high-jinks ensue.

Townsfolk in Mulekick include farmer Abner (David Barry); flirtatious Judy and Trudy Goober (Joanna Dransfeldt, Amanda Reeves); boarding house owner and aspiring country singer Opal Boone (Linda Honeyman); and the spooky Conjur Granny (Laura Tennenhouse).

Back home in New York, characters include detective Eurydice--”The best tracer of lost background singers in the business’ ’--(Elaine Raleigh); gossip columnist Deborah St. Nicholas (Susan Burns); and mobster Big George Cosmopolitan (Robert Craig, capably understudied at Saturday’s matinee by Bob Porter).

Joy Enright directed and choreographed the show; musical director is Dean Mora, augmented on keyboards by Peter Burt. The sets and costumes (Linda Bredemann) are as colorful as ever.

Note, too, the half-hour “vaudeville” revue that traditionally follows the main melodrama show is particularly strong this time around. It is a “Tribute to Summer,” combining skits (with Tennenhouse particularly funny as David Barry’s mother) and songs, and demonstrating that you don’t need to be Abbott and Costello to deliver a convincing “Who’s on First.”

Details

* WHAT: “Sisters on the Run.”

* WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through July 30.

* WHERE: Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama & Vaudeville Company Theater, 45 E. High St., Moorpark.

* HOW MUCH: Thursday, all seats $8; Friday and Saturday evening, all seats $12; Saturday and Sunday matinees, $12 adults; $9.50 seniors and children. Group rates are available for matinees only. Visa and MasterCard accepted.

* FYI: For reservations or further information, call 529-1212.