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'Rainmaker' sprinkles sadness with joy
By EILEEN SCHULTE DUNEDIN -- Lizzie Curry is a miserable old maid. She is plain. She has never been kissed. She lives with her father and brothers on a remote Western farm where the cattle are dying of thirst. She is 27, and no man has ever looked at her twice. Stephanie Roberts couldn't wait to play her. "I gravitate toward characters that are somewhat desperate ... and are at a critical point in their lives," said the 28-year-old Clearwater actor, who wears no makeup except theatrical base but was not "uglified" to play the part. Roberts, an anthropology major at the University of South Florida who acts when she "gets the bug," is one of the stars of the West Coast Players' three-act, 21/2-hour production of The Rainmaker playing this weekend at the Dunedin Community Center. Set in the 1920s, the play, an American fairy tale written by N. Richard Nash, focuses on Lizzie, who is starved for affection, and the H.C. Curry Farm, which is starved for rain. Out of nowhere comes a shady bamboozler named Bill Starbuck who promises Lizzie's father, H.C. Curry, a good soaking in exchange for $100. With the loss of his ranch at stake, H.C. Curry accepts. "He razzle-dazzles them," said Linda Woodruff Weir, the play's director. "He promises them rain in 24 hours. They all kind of get caught up in it." But as badly as they want rain, H.C. Curry and his sons, Noah and Jim, want to see their spinster sister happy -- and married. "They try whatever they can to marry her off," said Weir, who also played Lizzie in a Rainmaker production when she was 27. "Back then, being unmarried at 27 was a big deal. Starbuck gets her to believe she's beautiful because he's kind of a good guy. He champions her a little. There is a nice, quiet love scene between the two of them." The characters, dressed as cowboys with boots and chaps, play their parts on a set complete with two authentic saddles and bales of real hay, Weir said. "We tried to give it a real Western flair," she said. Will there be rain? Will Lizzie get married? Weir won't give away the ending. But people who saw the 1954 Broadway production of The Rainmaker starring Geraldine Page and Darren McGavin or the 1956 black-and-white film starring Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster might remember "a beautiful story about love and family," said Weir. And it's not a bad way to spend Mother's Day. "We thought it would be a good place to bring Mom," Weir said. "It (the play) is happy, funny and sad. You end up laughing, smiling and crying." At a glanceN. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker will be performed by the West Coast Players at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Dunedin Community Center, 1141 Michigan Blvd., Dunedin. Tickets cost $10 at the door and $9 in advance. Tickets cost $9 for seniors and students under 12. For information, call (813) 855-5797.
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