'Rain' gives audience ticket to ride back in time

Accompanied by a psychedelic light show, vintage television commercials and a pointed request for "your cooperation in not smoking -- anything -- in this theater," the touring production of "Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles" took the audience at the Show Me Center down the long and winding road from 2013 to 1964.

The multimedia Broadway show came to Cape Girardeau on Sunday night, drawing a crowd of Beatles fans ranging in age from grade schoolers to Baby Boomers.

The show began with a montage of clips showing everything from a rocket launch to John F. Kennedy's "Ask Not" speech before leading into a 1964 newspaper headline proclaiming "Moptop Mania" and an Ed Sullivan impersonator's introduction of "Rain."

The real Beatles stopped touring in 1966, citing, among other factors, the difficulty of making themselves heard over the screams of the adoring fans who flocked to their concerts.

The audience watching "Rain" Sunday night was more polite, sitting quietly through "She Loves You," mouthing a few lyrics during "Please Please Me" and cautiously tapping their feet with "From Me to You."

Paul Curato, left, and Steve Landes play Paul McCartney and John Lennon as Beatles tribute act Rain performs. (Adam Vogler)

The first part of the show offered a fairly faithful representation of the Beatles' live performances, from their 1964 debut on the "Ed Sullivan Show" to the end of their touring days two years later.

During a costume change, a series of television commercials from the 1960s drew laughs and a few gasps from the audience, particularly when a black-and-white "Flintstones" cartoon ended with Fred and Barney breaking out a pack of Winstons and lighting up.

After the commercial break, the faux four -- Paul Curatolo as Paul McCartney, Steve Landes as John Lennon, Joe Bithorn as George Harrison and Aaron Chiazza as Ringo Starr -- returned in replicas of the colorful, outlandish costumes featured on the cover of the band's 1969 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and earned some '60s-style applause from the audience with a showstopping rendition of "A Day in the Life" and a psychedelic light-and-video show evocative of that era.

"The lights with 'Lucy in the Sky' -- that was amazing," said Bob Dale of Cape Girardeau, who brought his 12-year-old son, Maxwell, to the show.

The Beatles broke up more than three decades before the younger Dale was born, but he has five Beatles songs -- including, of course, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" -- on his iPod, and he found the performance convincing.

"I think they're spot-on," Maxwell Dale said.

His dad was impressed with Curatolo's performance as McCartney.

"I wondered where they got a left-handed bassist that looked that much like Paul that could actually make music," Bob Dale said.

Rebecca Burris drove from Farmington, Mo., to see "Rain." She was too young to catch the Beatles in concert, but she said she has listened to plenty of the Fab Four's records.

"They're excellent. I can't hardly tell the difference," she said.

Her brother-in-law, Darrell Burris of Dexter, Mo., said he particularly enjoyed the songs from the Beatles' later albums.

"I like the later stuff better, but I thought they performed the earlier stuff great," he said.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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1333 N. Sprigg St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.