'Pump Boys & Dinettes' Inflates Old Stereotypes

Like a fine wine, some shows just get better with age. As the times change, a great musical has the ability to leap across the decades and still seem relevant. Shows like South Pacific and Fiddler On The Roof are still as viable as ever, tough the material can be considered dated. This ripening is certainly not the case with Pump Boys and Dinettes which was a fun loving alternative to the rise of the mega musicals (Sweeney Todd, Evita and Cats) in the early 1980's. Now a dinner theatre standard, Pump Boys is not only an irrelevant piece of theatre, it is borderline insulting to any educated person to watch.

Pump Boys and Dinettes is not quite a full book musical, but more a country review which features four men who work at a local gas station, and two waitresses who serve at the "Double Cupp Diner", a dinette, located somewhere on Route 57 in North Carolina. The actors all play instruments, including the waitresses who add some clever percussion sounds with various diner items.

The issue with this production in particular is that Pump Boys, as originally written and cast is mechanism for the Regan/Bush area of thinking. Seeing six lily white actors croon simple country tunes in a small southern town was certainly bothersome not only to me but many other theatre patrons at the performance I attended. Director Shawn Stengel, who has made a career of staging different productions of Pump Boys certainly had an opportunity with Drury Lane to rework the show, which is not a difficult task. Using some color blind casting would add layers to the show without changing one word of the book. Instead, we are left with women throwing themselves at men, re-emphasizing stereotypes of small town America and a community where fishing seems more important than finding any type of social conscious. Throughout the show, I kept thinking what would happen if a gay couple pulled into the gas station to fill up their car and go in the diner a grab a bite to eat. What song would that invoke with these workers? I hope America is beyond this.

Not that this casts lacks talent. Shaun Whitley has great chemistry with his cast mates and more importantly with the audience and shows some nice emotional depth with ‘Mamaw'. Tammy Mader shows why her alto belt is unequalled in ‘Be Good Or Be Gone'. The harmonies on a whole are spot on and the intricate and usable set is one of the best ever created not only for a Pump Boys production, but in Drury Lane history.

Redemption, my friends, is on its way with Drury Lane's highly anticipated Cabaret, another show that has ripened like a fine bottle of Opus One.

Pump Boys and Dinettes plays through August 2, 2009 at Drury Lane Oakbrook, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, IL. For tickets and show times, please visit www.drurylaneoakbrook.com or call the box office at 630.530.0111.