'BUS STOP' IS THE TICKET FOR VALENTINE'S DAY (PLAY REVIEW)

Grace Hoylard (Debbie Barnhouse), left, shared some wisdom with Elma Duckworth (Carly Pind) in a scene from "Bus Stop."

Once in awhile, the planets align in such a way that a play and a cast meant for those roles arrive in the middle of a Kansas blizzard at the same place at the same time. "Bus Stop," opening Friday at the River City Yacht Club, is just such a theatrical harmonic convergence.

In trying to find new faces for the River City Players' production of William Inge's romance, first-time director Suzanne Scherer has turned loose some new or heretofore little-used actors and actresses who charge the production with their energy and personalities.

"Bus Stop" opens Friday and continues Saturday and Feb. 18 and 19 at the River City Yacht Club. Those dinner theater shows begin at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. A special "no dinner" show will be presented at 7 p.m. Feb. 17 with doors opening at 6 p.m.. Phone 334-0954 for reservations.

Set in a small-town Kansas diner where a busload of people become temporarily stranded by a blizzard, "Bus Stop" is perfect fare for the Valentine season. It is romantic and sexy and often funny but a bit too dark to be schmaltzy.

Though Inge expresses his views about love more philosophically through other characters, the play's frictional heat occurs between Cherie (Fawna Gillette Jones), a "chanteuse" in a nightclub near the Kansas City stockyards, and the rancher Bo (Jeff Quigley), who is herding her to Montana to become his wife like it or not.

Though it has a '50s feel, Inge's play still has a lot to say about the images men think they must project to the world and the difficulty those veneers cause them with women.

Cherie is not immune to the lust she shares with Bo but didn't bargain for a permanent agreement. Asked if she wouldn't be lonesome if he went away, she says, "I was just as lonesome when he was here."

A recent transplant from Kansas City, Jones packs the same kind of one-two punch Marilyn Monroe did in the movie version of the play -- voluptuous talent and vulnerability. When Jones sweetly summons up "That Old Black Magic" in the middle of this storm, you don't know whether to clap, laugh or cry.

The raw-boned Quigley portrays Bo with an arrogance that makes him hard to like, so much so that it's difficult to tell in the play's evolution if his feelings really are hurt or he's just sulking. But Quigley's Bo grabs Cherie in all kinds of ways during the play, all of them performed with conviction.

The New Jersey native has done standup comedy in the past. This is his first role for the River City Players.

Grace Hoylard (Debbie Barnhouse) is the saucy, good-hearted proprietess of the diner. Barnhouse, who won the RCP's best supporting actress award last year, has the haircut and the attitude to set anybody straight about what can and can't happen in her diner.

Fifteen-year-old Central Junior High School student Carly Pind brims with naive charm as Grace's sidekick, high school waitress Elma Duckworth.

KFVS-TV news director Mike Beecher, another RCP first-timer, somehow makes a sympathetic character of the cynical, boozy former professor whose interest in Elma is discomfiting.

"My dear," Dr. Gerald Lyman tells in a moment of truth, "I have disapproved of my entire life."

Rich Behring, who has had a number of walk-on roles in past RCP productions, has much more to chew on in Sheriff Will Masters, who eventually has to hornswaggle Bo. Behring imbues the sheriff with compassionate authority.

Randy Barnhouse makes his RCP debut as the bus driver with an eye for Grace. Maybe it helps that it's his real-life wife he's snoogling with. Barnhouse's Carl is a strong and believable presence on stage.

Lloyd Williams plays Virgil Blessing, a ranch hand whose quiet words reveal that he knows much more about how to be a man than Bo does. In his debut, Williams gets better with each moment on stage.

Another star of "Bus Stop" is Charlie Kent's worn, naugahyde diner set, so authentic you can almost smell bacon frying.

The assistant director is LeAnne W. Statler, and the lighting is by Ann Swanson.