Glimpse into 'Garage' is pleasant, touching

Welcome to "Stanton's Garage." It's old and dingy and hasn't been kept up since its owner fled the country to escape the police. But the people are nice and friendly, if you can get a word in edgewise.\nAt 7 p.m. Saturday in T300 Studio Theatre, audiences joined the folks of "Stanton's Garage" outside Hannibal, Mo., on Route 36 for a brief two-and-a-half-hour visit. With plenty of laughs and a few touching moments, the glimpse into the garage made for a pleasant stay.\n"Stanton's" is not a place of enlightenment, nor is it a place where one can be comfortable, but for many of the play's characters it is a second home and is treated as such.\nRon, portrayed by graduate student Erik Anderson, impatiently waits to get his car and leave. Fuming in frustration, Lee and Frannie (graduate student Sheila Regan and sophomore Jennifer Bulla, respectively) have had car trouble on the way to a wedding and their Volvo needs to be serviced. Main mechanic Denny, played by senior Scott Cupper, is nowhere to be found. Silvio, an old mechanic of few words played by graduate student Jose Antonio Garcia, has little to offer in consolation.\nMeanwhile, Harlon, the garage's token 17-year-old errand boy (freshman James Bezy) exchanges looks with young Frannie. Locals Mary and Audrey, played by junior Jamie Acres and graduate student Kim Hinton, respectively, talk Lee's ear off about everything and nothing.\nBy making the set a run-down garage yellowing with age with amber lighting, designers I. Christopher Berg (set) and graduate students Rebecca Jarrell (costumes) and Morgan Brenner (lights and sound) created a familiar space for the action to take place.\nAlthough there seemed to be a lack of tension between Regan and Bulla playing the prospective stepmother and stepdaughter relationship (Lee and Frannie), each had interesting energy with the other characters in the play -- Regan with Garcia's Silvio and Bulla with Bezy's Harlon.\nGarcia's ability to capture the slow-moving, slow- and terse-talking Silvio was especially interesting to watch, not to mention funny and entertaining. Garcia's internal speed juxtaposed with Anderson's Ron moving at a reckless mile-a-minute created a wonderful clash of personalities resulting in perfectly executed comedy.\nAdd in the flavor of Acres' Mary with stories of Jackson, her third (and she doesn't say last) husband, her brash quips and over-the-top one-liners mixed with Hinton's unabrasive girlishness, and the garage is a recipe for hilarity.\nThe only problem with this production lies in the play itself. Joan Ackermann's play is a field day for actors. Although the play attempts to have touching moments, the "car talk" humor of the play brazenly dismisses it. Beyond that, the play's touching moments are highly contrived and almost soap opera in style -- the result in this production being fairly uninteresting.\nBut the play is not really about two older people realizing they're still in love, nor about a girl and her future stepmother becoming friends, or even about a demented wine importer making friends with a genius mechanic. The play is about a very American combination: comedy, ordinary people and an auto garage.