T he evening was presided over graciously by the pert and practical proprietress, "Miss Lynn" (Marci Williams). Her silvery throated warbling thrilled the pit as did the gallant vocalizing of her fictive "fiance" a young Turk known as Ollie O'Leary (Kyle Hager) who wields a mean guitar and a resonant appreciation of Western Culture. Not only does the occasion resuscitate a typhoon of reminiscences in the more elephantine minds amongst us, but it resurrects, from the dust of the Gaiety Attic, the corporeal presences of four of Dodge's more notorious, and long believed dried up and desiccated citizens, including the un-toppable Fannie Mae Garrettson, played cunningly by Miss Karen Carroll, who glides forth from the mists of Reconstruction in a splendiferous bustle of heart red satin matched only by the strawberry fire of her piled high store bought hair. Miss Garretson commences to regale us with a bouquet of melodies, including a romp through her checkered yet energetic love life, "The Scoundrels of the West", which could go a long way to describe her thespian paramour here, the ever "Mysterious" Dave Mather, erstwhile Assistant Marshall, saloon owner, horse thief and all about Lothario, played with convincing bravura by Mr. Mark Mahieu.

When the Mysterious Mr. Mather happens to lose his trousers in a fit of candor, revealing a more than intimate aspect of his celebrated nature, the pit immediately fills with shrieks of recognition from several local fancies and frails. Perhaps one of the more heart stopping high points of the evening is Mr. Mather's untimely confession regarding the origin of his famed sobriquet. If the citizens of Dodge learn nothing else during the course of the evening, they at least know what is at the 'bottom' and 'to the point' -- verily next to the skin -- of this most enigmatic and secretive of gun-slingers.

However, order is restored in time for several deep dank intones announcing the arrival upon our Humble Board of that eminent and inexhaustible tragedian, Frederick Forsythe Fosdick the Third, played with meteorological accuracy by Jim Johnson. Mr. Fosdick proceeds to pistol-whip into a bloody pulp one of Mr. Poe's more popular poems -- the eloquence of our fair tragedian may owe more to the literature of the Land Office Circular and the Montgomery Ward Catalogue than to the collected works of the Bard himself. However, we trust that the spontaneous and cataclysmic "éclats" of emotion from our local audience indicated approval, since no cabbages were witnessed in a hurled trajectory toward the footlights.

Then the atmosphere, which had grown warm, was duly chastened and froze and in general constipated by the appearance of the right Reverend Mould (Mike Craver), who seemed to want to turn this decidedly dramatic occasion into one of purely personal gain. Ain't he got enough business as it is, without interrupting our civic entertainments with his self serving gall?

L est we forget the "The Bunkhouse Boys""Stubby" (Alan Stukenholtz), "Jaws" (Chad Mickey) and "Crunchy" (Kent Ross), who beat into submission various items of musical furniture strewn about the stage, not to mention pianofortes, git-tars and bull fiddles. The "Boys'" heads and faces seemed distinctly to favor and seek the floor in front of them. One hopes they got to retire, speedily, to their Bunkhouse, since throughout the evening they evidenced a decided languor, not to mention a surprising proclivity for cross-stitching.