Collin College kicks up heels with Li'l Abner
Elaine Liner, Dallas Observer

In a nice bit of theatrical synchronicity, there are jokes about Howard Johnson's 28 flavors of ice cream in the vintage musical Li'l Abner, now winding up a short run at Plano's Collin College Theatre. Like HoJos themselves, shows like this have nearly disappeared from the landscape. Old-style musicals are expensive, require dozens of singers and dancers, and need major rehearsal. Collin College can do this thanks to a healthy theater department budget, some super-talented student performers and director Brad Baker, head of the drama division, who is tops at putting on spectaculars.

Earthquake McGoon (James Chandler) promises Daisy Mae (Kim Borge) a "passport to ecstasy."

 There's nothing li'l about Li'l Abner. Not since Lyric Stage's sweeping production of Carousel last fall has there been musical theater this lavishly produced on a local stage.

 Of course, Li'l Abner, based on the comic strip by Al Capp, isn't the classic that Carousel is. But it's darned cute. The score by Gene DePaul and the great Johnny Mercer adds some class to the cartoony book by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, with songs such as the love theme "Namely You" and the lively "Jubilation T. Cornpone," which celebrates the giddy slothfulness of the hillbillies of Dogpatch, U.S.A.

Humor-wise, Li'l Abner might have been the Doonesbury of its day (with righter-leaning political views). In their hoot 'n' holler patois, Capp's rubes—muscular lunk Abner, his parents Mammy and Pappy Yokum, girlfriend Daisy Mae, and scores of others—commented on the foibles of government and changing social attitudes. A modest Broadway hit in the mid-1950s, the musical takes swipes at nuclear proliferation (Dogpatch is to be evacuated for a nuke test because Las Vegas has gone radioactive), modern kitchen conveniences, General Motors (represented by the character "General Bullmoose") and the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower was so a'feared of.

 And what to make of the "Yokumberry tonic" that kills men's attraction to women and turns them into preening bodybuilders?

 Collin College's production keeps all the old references intact and even revives a number that was cut from the Broadway version, the vampy "The Way to a Man's Heart," sung by villainous temptress Appassionata von Climax (played with full-throated oomph by Julie Mayer).

 The cast of 36 goes great guns on the choreography by Paula Morelan (clearly inspired by Michael Kidd's original moves). Nathan Beaudrie has the face of an angel and voice of a matinee idol as dim Abner. Kim Borge plays Daisy Mae in a style American Idol judges might call "pageant-y," but she sings nicely and looks mighty purty in that ragged miniskirt. Among the supporting characters, Vladimir Meyman, in an acid-green Zoot suit, casts the comic whammy as Evil Eye Fleagle. Professional actor Dane Hoffman joins the students as Marryin' Sam and almost steals the show in a couple of the snazzier production numbers, including the ironic "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands."

 Every minute busts wide open with youthful energy, and the audience eats it up. Li'l Abner works like a shot of theatrical B-12.