Drury Lane serves up high-octane 'Pump Boys and Dinettes'

It's easy to like "Pump Boys and Dinettes," the lighter-than-air homage to life alongside the highway, now in a pleasing revival at Drury Lane Oak Brook.

To begin with, the southern-fried revue has an appetizing, roots-rock and country-western score. It also boasts amiable characters who serve up slices of small-town life accompanied by a generous supply of down-home aphorisms ("work won't kill you, but worry will") and peppered with the occasional entendre.

In a sense, the musical set the table for shows like "Million Dollar Quartet" and "Fire on the Mountain." And while those shows have eclipsed the modestly disarming "Pump Boys" (which does earn kudos for an all-original score), the show remains a tasty dish, made tastier by the spirited sextet of actor/musicians who make up the Drury Lane cast.

Conceived and written by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann, "Pump Boys and Dinettes" opened on Broadway in 1982 and ran there for 16 months. Since then, it has become a staple of regional theater. A production at Chicago's Apollo Theater ran for five years during the mid 1980s. The Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights offers another helping in September, a little more than six weeks after Drury Lane's closes.

Metropolis has its work cut out for it. Drury Lane's revival is well-sung, well-played and cleverly percussive. Moreover, the show benefits from Shawn Stengel's informed direction. Stengel, who starred in the Chicago production and has directed more than a half dozen others around the country, is joined by music director Malcolm Ruhl, also a member of the Chicago cast and an understudy for the Broadway production.

Stengel and Ruhl know their stuff, and they've got a savvy artistic partner in set and lighting designer Christopher Ash, who ingeniously evokes a North Carolina highway in the form of two giant slabs of faux asphalt extending from either side of the stage. He also manages to tone down some of Drury Lane's trademark opulence, no small achievement in a venue decorated by red velvet, crystal chandeliers and flocked wallpaper.

Stengel gives the production a more intimate feel by setting most of the action downstage. It alternates between the cheery, cluttered Double Cupp Diner, a 1950s style chrome and Formica eatery owned by sisters Prudie (Liza Jaine) and Rhetta (triple-threat Tammy Mader, who also serves as choreographer) and a dusty, roadside filling station complete with a rusted pickup truck, which doubles as a percussion instrument, along with other household items. The station is owned by endearing nerd L.M. (Alan Bukowiecki) and the endlessly decent Jim (Shaun Whitley), who spend as much time at the Double Cupp counter as they do under the hoods of cars. Rounding out the cast is Brian Burke as taciturn grease monkey Eddie, and Jesse Kazemek, as Jackson, whose straight-laced appearance belies his rock 'n' roll heart.

The score features a couple of real tuners, including the rockabilly-inspired "Mona," a propulsive ode to a drugstore siren; the high-octane, imminently hummable "Vacation" and the bluesy, harmonica-driven "Serve Yourself." They're paired with "Mamaw," a wistful lullaby to a departed grandmother guilelessly performed by the engaging Whitely, and the sassy "Tips," a pocket change solicitation done with a growl and a shimmy by Jaine and Mader. With that sly, sexy number, Jaine and Mader set the dinette bar pretty high.