The sheriff of Rooster Punch doesn’t pull any punches for those who desecrate a sacred Santa Maria tradition, during the Great American Melodrama’s latest farce set in the late 1800s.
When top cop Kit Carter (Austen Horne) hears word about a band of bandits traveling through her jurisdiction, she suspects they’re scheming to steal a local ranch’s prized cabbages. But this news doesn’t offend her nearly as much as the intentions of some law-abiding carnies, whom the convicts plan to pawn the cabbages off to.
Amid the county and state fairs each summer brings, Carter takes a timely jab at visiting food vendors who serve Santa Maria-style barbecue with coleslaw—made with the stolen cabbages—rather than a side of salsa and a tossed green salad, a substitution she condemns as sacrilege.
Like many shows at the Great American Melodrama, Gunsmokin’, which opened in mid-July and is slated to run through early September, is full of local inside jokes, fourth wall breaks, anachronistic humor, and song spoofs.
Some characters sing and dance to parodies of Prince’s “1999” (swapped to “1899”) and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (rearranged as “Baby Got Brap” with new lyrics such as “I like big guns and I cannot lie”), while others make small talk about traffic congestion with multi-horse pileups.
During an expedition to track down the cabbage bandits, Sheriff Carter has to pull over unexpectedly due to “a flat.” Since all the show’s horseback stuff is Monty Python-style without any actual horses, we don’t get to see what part of the horse Carter fills with air (probably the hooves, but it’s anybody’s guess). But the ensuing air pump sound effects are destined to make the most stern audience member break their poker face and chortle.
Carter is accompanied by a mysterious gunslinger named Rick O’Shea (Noah Esquivel), who bears a striking resemblance to the sheriff’s late husband (also Esquivel). O’Shea is an out-of-towner with an aim to claim the bandits’ bounty reward, or so Carter is led to believe.
Little does the sheriff know that O’Shea was hired by Rooster Punch resident Perky LaPett (Jill Price) as part of an elaborate plot to swindle her peers’ real estate from under their noses. LaPett is a greedy saloon owner who tasks O’Shea to distract Carter while she plans to intercept an important telegram with news of an upcoming railroad development.
Without hope of a new train to boost the town’s economy, LaPett figures her neighbors in Rooster Punch will sell their land at desperately low rates. Like the Melodrama’s most memorable villains, LaPett is clearly fodder for boos and hisses from the audience, especially when she refers to Carter as “She-riff” and similarly condescending sneers.
Alongside Horne, Esquivel, and Price, the Melodrama’s stage is littered with scenery-chewing supporting characters throughout Gunsmokin’, such as Deputy Trusty (Jeffrey Laughrun), who’s painfully clueless when it comes to obvious romantic advances from his crush, Virginia (Annaliese Chambers), whose patience is driven to a boil.
Nicholas Houchin brings some Mr. Smee-esque energy to the mix as LaPett’s crony, Sam “Little Man” Shanks, and Brett Mollard plays Mayor Maynot (get it?) with bureaucratic overkill, especially when he makes sure to stop dramatically every time he reads “stop” at the end of a sentence in a telegram.
This is your cue to “stop” what you’re doing and go see Gunsmokin’. “Stop.”
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