Spitfire fizzles Lyric Stage serves bluegrass and treacle BY CAROLYN CLAY
	The Spitfire Grill Music and book by James Valcq. Lyrics and book by Fred Alley. Based on a film by Lee David Zlotoff. Directed by Spiro Veloudos. Musical direction by Jonathan Goldberg. Set by Brynna Bloomfield. Costumes by Robert M. Russo. Lighting by Scott Pinkney. With Elizabeth Hayes, Christopher Chew, Bobbie Steinbach, Cheryl McMahon, Derek Stearns, Maryann Zschau, and Floyd Richardson. At the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through March 13.

The movie is set in Maine. The musical is set in Wisconsin. But The Spitfire Grill might be most comfortable in Vermont, where the sap flows free. Based on the 1996 Lee David Zlotoff film, the 2001 Off Broadway chamber musical removes even the movie’s tough if inspirational ending, in which a moribund town’s rejuvenation comes at a price. Here all is upbeat as young Percy Talbot graduates from five years in prison to a new life in a one-dog town called Gilead. To a mostly bluegrass score, uncaged jailbird Percy brings new vigor to the insular and beleaguered burg when she is reluctantly taken in at the local eatery, the breakfast joint of the title, by a proprietress who has a secret of her own. There are a few pretty songs, including the lullaby "Wild Bird," which comes with a cello echo of its principal theme. And the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, presenting the show in its area premiere, fields a competent, spirited cast. But why bother?

The film, which starred Alison Elliott, Ellyn Burstyn, and Marcia Gay Harden, won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. But it’s sentimental stuff, augmented by a tinkly-mysterious soundtrack and a photographic portfolio for Mother Nature. Composer and librettist James Valcq and lyricist and librettist Fred Alley, collaborating at Wisconsin’s American Folklore Theatre, added the folksy score.

Released from jail after a five-year term, Percy chooses to start over in Gilead, the scene of a fall-foliage photo she cut from a magazine. Upon her middle-of-the-night midwinter arrival, she learns it’s "a place for leaving, not for coming to." Nevertheless, Sheriff Joe Sutter manages to pawn the newcomer off on elderly grill owner Hannah Ferguson, who has a bad hip and is in need of restaurant help. Percy then sets the nosy town buzzing that "Say what you want, say what you will/Something’s cookin’ at the Spitfire Grill." And that leg-slapping lyric is typical.

Also skeletally treated, in dialogue and song, are Hannah’s heartbreak over the mysterious loss of her son following combat in Vietnam; the fraying marriage of sweet-hearted if clumsy Shelby to Hannah’s nephew Caleb, who has manliness issues; and the way Sheriff Joe becomes increasingly sweet on the skittish Percy. The plot engine, however, is a Ponzi-like essay-contest scheme by which Hannah means to unload the grill. Each entry — and they fly in from around the country — includes $100 and a Queen-for-a-Day tale of why its author should win the backwater eatery.

The events of the play are not only predictable (unless you’ve seen the film and expect the musical to head for the same collision of tragedy and forgiveness) but hoky, and never more so than in "Ice and Snow," where a trio of characters note the transition from winter to spring by creating subdued Stomp rhythms first with shovels and then with rakes. With its old-fashioned, up-tight town and crusty old lady thawed by a fresh-faced young miss, The Spitfire Grill is redolent of Disney’s Pollyanna, with a sprinkle of child abuse, hard time, Vietnam, and country.

Actually, the music, a blend of Americana and pop, is among the show’s better elements; in most of the songs, melody is restricted to the vocals, with musical director Jonathan Goldberg’s small ensemble of keyboard and strings providing jumpy, minimalist underlay. And the cast includes some outstanding recidivists among the usual musical-theater suspects. Bobbie Steinbach brings her usual drop-dead timing to the irascible Hannah, who unfortunately turns into Granny Cheer around intermission. Maryann Zschau nicely handles the prettiest tunes. The ensemble — including the big-voiced Christopher Chew as Sheriff Joe, Derek Stearns as Shelby’s controlling husband, and Cheryl McMahon as a busybody worthy of Mayberry citizenship — does a fine job with the music. But those roles are cut from cardboard. More substantive is Percy’s, in which newcomer Elizabeth Hayes sings sweetly, when not hog-tied to twang, and combines woundedness with spunk. Scott Pinkney’s dappled lighting adds magic, but director Spiro Veloudos is hard-put to crowd grill, town, and woods onto the small stage.

The Lyric, of course, wants to appeal to various audiences; the troupe’s musical offerings have ranged from unmemorable fare like No Way To Treat a Lady to spectacular productions of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George and the underrated Side Show. And it regularly intersperses edgier work with audience-lulling entertainments. Still, there’s too much balm here — even for Gilead.