Drama-comedy ‘Rainmaker’ ends on Saturday

The Kentwood Players are presenting N. Richard Nash’s socalled farm-style Cinderella story, “The Rainmaker,” at the Westchester Playhouse, 8301 Hindry Ave., Los Angeles. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., Aug. 19 and 20.Tickets range from $13 to $15 and can be reserved by calling (310) 645-5156.

For more information and directions, visit the website at www.kentwoodplayers.org.

“The Rainmaker,” described as a romantic drama-comedy, was first produced on Broadway in 1954 and was made into a 1956 film starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn.

The play is set during a time of paralyzing drought in the West. The plot revolves around a girl whose father and two brothers are worried as much about her becoming an old maid as they are about their dying cattle.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a picaresque character appears with a mellifluous tongue and the most grandiose notions. He claims to be a rainmaker and promises to bring rain for $100.

The stranger, Starbuck, spins fanciful tales, more dreams than hucksterism, and Lizzie Curry— the prospective spinster—is long on dreams and short on fulfillment. Their coming together sets in motion an unleashing of the pent-up dreams of the others, as paralyzed in the humdrum as the drought paralyzes their livelihoods.