River City Repertory Theatre's Bus Stop: Sex, Booze, Heart & Soul! MUST SEE!

Go see River City Repertory Theatre's Bus Stop at East Bank Theatre. You've got Friday and Saturday nights (7:30p) and a Sunday matinee (3p) left to catch it, and you definitely WILL want to catch it. Here's why.

The show opens like a heavy door into a warm room to the strains of Gustavo Santaolalla's brilliantly-moving theme music from Academy-Award winning director Ang Lee's feature film "Brokeback Mountain." Right away, your senses are attuned to a deep, abiding relationship to which you are not immediately introduced. You will love the sassy, brassy Diner-owner, Grace, in whose restaurant our story takes place and with whom Carl, the clever and eager Bus Driver, has a lascivious dalliance (ah, there's the sizzle!). Young, blushing Elma will melt your heart with her old world naiveté and charming sense of wonder at life and love. I personally want Will to be the Sheriff of all towns everywhere, with his protective and authoritative demeanor, tough-love wisdom and even-handed sense of fairness. You will cringe and laugh nervously at the antics and innuendo of Dr. Lyman who may or may not be a lecherous old man on the lam with a penchant for young, unsuspecting girls (look out, Elma!). And the frenetic appearance of the lovely, fluttering butterfly of a leading lady, Cherie, will thrill and woo you with her all-at-once demure, dramatic, and desperately angst-ridden delivery.

But I'm not sure how you'll take Bo Decker. The instant he entered from stage left, I hated him. Cavalier. Domineering. Rambunctious. Unaware of or oblivious to those around him. Bo is just plain rude, in my book, initially. But I instantly loved his buddy Virgil. Quiet. Kind-faced. Fatherly. A large but unassuming, muted presence. There has to be something redeeming in Bo for a good man like Virg' to keep him around. Their friendship turns the head (cue the music) as Virg' confides intimate detail about Bo to Cherie in a turning point that virtually midwives a transformation in all of our new friends at the Bus Stop.

And then you realize, somehow, you got invested in the happiness of this wayward cowboy and the object of his unrequited love! You want him to win. You want good things to happen to him. You want there to be a change of heart. You are rooting for it, clamoring for it, expecting good news.

You'll have to see Bus Stop for yourself to find out if that good news comes. And you're in for an aesthetic treat, too, because the play is a feast for your eyes with set design by the masterful Jim Hayes of LA House of Props, LLC, who transports us back to 1955 with a diner so realistic you'll complain about the slow service to order your eggs. At the start of act two, watch for the endearing and compelling light design that draws your eye and ear into the tenderness of Virgil's actual guitar-playing as the diner scene comes back to life. Don't miss the adorable diner costumes, Cherie's "little number" she slips into for an impromptu performance, or the way she coddles and nurses her coffee cup in her worrisomeness. Catch every bright-eyed marvel that flashes across Elma's face as Dr. Lyman regales and woos her. Struggle to understand how someone so handsome and in such tight Wranglers can be so unaware of himself and how bullishly he moves through his world!

Just go see it. Get your tickets at here. Then tell me what YOU thought~MC