Theater review: As campy caravan show, 'Hormel Girls' shines

By day they peddled ham, chili and Spam; by night, the "Hormel Girls" lit up stages and radio airwaves with song and dance. Any way you fry it, bake it, or eat it cold, this is irresistible stuff for theater -- particularly for a Minnesota theater dedicated to telling uniquely Minnesota stories.

History Theatre in St. Paul couldn't resist, and the result is "Hormel Girls," a big, old-fashioned book musical that is best when re-creating the caravan's stage presence. When we get behind the scenes, though, playwright Laurie Flanigan's script bloats up and loses momentum.

From 1947 to 1953, Jay C. Hormel put 65 women on the road to promote his stable of meat products, ginning up a nice national buzz and making sales along the way. Flanigan and composer Hiram Titus telescoped the story into the experience of Hormel, the show's manager and six women. Flanigan starts with the final show on Dec. 13, 1953, and sets up Mark Rosenwinkel's Hormel character to wistfully take us back to the beginning. Rosenwinkel rarely gets a leading-man chance and he's quite good, both as a singer and as an easygoing, likable actor.

Jen Burleigh-Bentz portrays the no-nonsense group leader with a crisp postwar look, her hair swept into an Andrews Sister wave and her lips painted ruby red. Angela Timberman shows off her pitch-perfect comic instincts as the wise-cracking sidekick. Tinia Moulder, Sondra Norland, Stacey Lindell and Tracie Hodgdon fill out the troupe, and Richard C. Grube is the fastidious manager. Each is fine, with a distinguishing moment, but this piece truly sings in the ensemble -- big campy music and dialogue reminiscent of an old TV variety hour. Titus crafts nice period melodies for Flanigan's witty lyrics.

Sari Ketter directs with a light spirit and an eye toward nicely overdrawn characters in those instances -- winking at how the earnest 1950s commercial lingo twists through the warped lens of current cynicism. How can you not smile at a line like "Spam's quality never varies." No, it certainly doesn't.

Ketter and Flanigan struggle, though, to relieve a basic tension in the script: to propel the action while pausing to flesh out characters with everyday chatter. The scenes begin to look the same, the conversations sound the same, the problems don't amount to a hill of chili beans and we're not much richer for the effort.

Amanda Hunter's costume scheme is right on and Yvette Guillaume keeps the music very serviceable -- both signs that this production has a lot going for it. Trim the fat, and you have a real treat.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299

Graydon Royce • groyce@startribune.com