The Johns Hopkins University Theatre's current production of William Inge's Bus Stop has been advertised as "a romantic comedy-drama." In other words, something for just about everyone.
Now that isn't automatically a good thing, and it might have invited a fair amount of pandering, except that director Peg Denithorne and her troupe of student actors balanced the more formulaic aspects of their chosen material against nicely-worked moments of irony and anguish. It helps that Inge's panoramic script eventually challenges and transcends a few of the Midwestern types that it sets on stage - and that it contains the kind of frank talk about sexuality that, in a play that premiered during the Eisenhower Administration, comes as a surprise. Because Bus Stop begins in a conventional tone, each of its later, offbeat notes is all the more rewarding.
On account of this, the Merrick Barn's audience can expect a plodding first act, a dynamic second and a satisfying though pathos-ridden third during this weekend's performances. It takes a few awkward introductions and corny jokes before Inge's characters are entirely in place. But once they're all assembled, it becomes clear that there isn't a dull role among them.
The JHUT production does contain a couple of inevitable and mildly distracting pieces of 1950s décor, and the actors' Great-Plains accents ring false now and then. Thankfully, these few minor defects aren't enough to undermine a show that, thanks to a perfectly-selected cast, effortlessly brought the breed of artistry behind Inge's work to the fore.
The action of Bus Stop confines itself to one frigid night in March 1955 and to one bus stop restaurant somewhere on the outskirts of Kansas City. That restaurant, Grace's Place, is run by the matronly Grace Hoylard (sophomore Evelyn Clark) and her young helper, Elma (sophomore Emily Daly).
Now and then, the "dingy establishment with few modern improvements" that Inge conceived sees a visitor, like Will the local sheriff (sophomore Richard Zheng) or Carl the bus driver (senior Anthony Chiarito). Shortly after the play begins, Carl, forced off the road by a snowstorm, arrives with his passengers. Accompanied by a nightclub singer named Cherie (freshman Emma Brodie) and a cultured Easterner named Dr. Lyman (junior Nicholas Scamman), he seeks refuge in the more or less deserted restaurant.
And that isn't quite everybody. Carl has two other passengers: a loudmouthed young rodeo star named Bo Decker (freshman Adam Reiffen) and his taciturn companion Virge (Peabody senior Iain Roush). When we first meet him, Bo is set on taking Cherie as his wife - regardless of what she wants - and hauling her back to his ranch in Montana.
It would have been possible for Denithorne to make their romantic misadventures the crux of the show and use everyone else for color or human interest. Yet even actors who disappear for substantial stretches, such as Zheng and Clark, deliver commanding performances. At the same time, a central conflict like Bo and Cherie's keeps the sprawling ensemble feel of this version of Bus Stop from degenerating into disorder.
As last fall's enjoyable production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night demonstrated, the Merrick Barn's stage is most effective when most is stripped down. Matilda Spelvin's set design is convincing enough - something like a poor man's Johnny Rockets. Too much bric-a-brac would have crowded actors like Reiffen, whose performance depends upon a grandiose and furious body language. As his foil, Virge spends a lot of time sitting quaintly in a corner, though Roush also supplies a few cogent moments of humor and melancholy.
The demographic cross-section setup that Inge's play employs might be familiar from Arthur Miller's 1955 one-act "A Memory of Two Mondays" - or, for a more modern reference, reality TV. Inge's incompatible strangers fill their own small space with plenty of mayhem but are never fully dislikable or - at least in a handful of cases - totally irredeemable.
Before the second act draws to a close, Scamman transforms Dr. Lyman from an out-of-place know-it-all into a besotted disaster. He's lamentable enough on his own, but the care that he receives from Elma - whom Daly plays as surprisingly intelligent, unflaggingly sweet and appropriately awkward - makes him seem tragically helpless.
Inge once described the script as "a composite picture of varying kinds of love ranging from the innocent to the depraved."
Bus Stop doesn't avoid the usual clichés about love, maturity and wrong choices. It simply juxtaposes and combines them in ways that are unexpected and consistently, paradoxically intriguing.
Yet the Theatre's actors do manage one moment of sublime lunacy. About halfway through the second act, Elma and her visitors decide to put on a talent show to pass the time - featuring first some of Virge's guitar music, then a scene from Romeo and Juliet delivered, in part, by an abysmally drunk Dr. Lyman.
For the finale, Cherie croons "That Old Black Magic." What we get is not so much a piece of feel-good nostalgia as a sequence worthy of John Waters: a mixture of camp and absurdity that finds Brodie in black sequins, bombarded with Reiffen's loony enthusiasm and surrounded by the garish yellow walls of Grace's Place.
So perhaps this Bus Stop does offer something for everyone - including critics who, like myself, have a taste for plays that are ambitious enough to be somewhat flawed and flawed enough to be massively interesting.
Bus Stop will be performed on Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3 at 8 p.m., and on Sunday, May 4 at 2 p.m. Call (410) 516-0618 for more information.
