"Gold in the Hills"

July 28, 2011 — A murder mystery, a beautiful young woman lured away by a dark, mustachioed, black-suited villain, an aging farmer being tricked out of his property, an innocent man framed for murder, undiscovered oil and gold hidden beneath the land. Sound like 1920s melodrama? That's exactly what it is.

The Barnstormers in Tamworth, New Hampshire, staged an old-fashioned story of good and evil with no shades of gray in between. A farmer with two beautiful daughters, an evil villain you love to hate, a noble young man forced on the run when falsely accused of murder, overblown dialog, deliberate over-acting that only good actors could get away with, a sequence set in the Bowery in New York with song and dance. This was a wildly entertaining show. The audience really got into it, loudly booing the villain, applauding and cheering the good guys, sometimes drowning out some of the dialog.

Featuring 22 performers, this was one of the largest casts I've seen in a summer theater production. All 22 were on stage at once in the raucous scene in a Bowery bar in the second act. Two intermissions were necessary, not because of the length of the show, but to facilitate the extensive set changes.

I'll probably remember this show as the most fun I had at a New Hampshire summer theater this season.