RALEIGH -- Rural southerners and mobile home owners are easy targets for parody. Characters with big hair and beer bellies work fine in sketch comedy, but sustaining them in a full-length production is a tall order. Happily, the producers of Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy understand this, offering an amusing, energetic staging of “The Great American Trailer Park Musical.”
Norbert and Jeannie have lived for 20 years in “Armadillo Acres,” a North Florida trailer park. Jeannie hasn’t left the trailer for most of that time, traumatized by the kidnapping of their young son.
With his marriage falling apart, Norbert falls easy prey to Pippi, a new resident who works at the local strip joint. Betty, the park’s longtime manager, and her cronies Lin (whose real name is Linoleum because she was born on the kitchen floor) and Pickles (whose real name is Donna but got the nickname because she’s constantly hysterically pregnant) chat about everybody’s relationships and pass on gossip. Things get complicated when Duke, Pippi’s Magic Marker-sniffing boyfriend she left back in Oklahoma City, arrives toting hot lead and revenge.
Betsy Kelso’s script makes loving fun with a constant barrage of zingers about road kill, Lifetime TV and press-on nails; several one-liners literally stop the show. David Nehls’ country/rock songs have toe-tapping beats and soulful melodies, but most don’t sustain interest because of their generic lyrics and one-joke premises.
That doesn’t stop director Tito Hernandez, who keeps the production engaging with dozens of hilarious touches. His amazingly varied choreography, especially for the three gal-pals, runs the gamut from disco and boogie-woogie to pole dancing and two-stepping, confidently aided by music director Jay Wright and the four-piece band.
Hernandez gets ingratiating performances from a cast that supplies subtlety to the stereotypes. Canady Vance Thomas sports the strongest voice, giving a sexy throb to her stripper number and a heartfelt twang to her ballads. Lisa Jolley fills Jeannie with manic intensity, impressive in her high-flying vocals. Gina Stewart’s Betty, Sandi Sullivan’s Lin and Lauren Barone’s Pickles gamely work their routines and multiple costume changes, providing constant merriment as the ersatz Greek chorus. Michael Jones gives Norbert a likable vulnerability, while Jesse R. Gephart makes Duke’s dimwitted shenanigans outrageous without overdoing them.
The show starts out a little slowly, but by the end of the first act’s all-out finale the audience is hooked. The second act’s ever-increasing hilarity finishes off a fine summer night of fun.
