By Charlene Baldridge
SDUN Theatre Critic

Although many are not old enough to recall the early days of radio personally, theatergoers may have a nodding acquaintance with its history through plays such as Alan Sorkin’s “The Farnsworth Invention,” a Page to Stage workshop at La Jolla Playhouse in 2006, and John Olive’s “Voice of the Prairie,” seen locally at the Old Globe in 1988.

While Sorkin concerns himself with the invention itself and the contention over the inventors, Olive gives playgoers some idea of early radio’s small-town beginnings.

Leon is a radio salesman with a shortwave broadcasting device. He hires David, a Nebraska farmer, to tell tales of his itinerant youth, first with his storytelling grandfather and then with a blind girl named Frankie. Whether these tales are tall or true, David is a big hit in rural America, and Leon sells plenty of radios.

The action flashes between the present, with Leon and David, and the past, in which Frankie runs away from an abusive father and rides the rails with Davey. The teenagers fall in love with and are dependent upon one another until chance separates them. Davey looks for Frankie, but being blind, she cannot look for him, and so they remain separated until fate, network radio and David’s broadcasting fame bring change.

Olive’s romantic play is spiced up by his device of using only three actors to portray all the characters, young and old. Luminous local actor Amanda Sitton portrays both Frankie and the adult Frances, who teaches school in Kansas City. Frances’ suitor is James, an asthmatic man of the cloth, played by Jason Maddy, who also portrays the young David, whom she knew as Davey, and Leon. Appealing and accomplished stage actor David Meyers makes his North Coast Repertory debut as the grown-up David. He and Maddy look enough alike to incarnate the same man. Sitton brings Frankie’s effervescent, optimistic young woman to her older self.

“The Voice of the Prairie” is enriched by husband-and-wife co-directors Lynne Griffin and Sean Sullivan, who played Frankie and Davey in the Old Globe’s 1988 production, directed by Thomas Bullard. They fell in love during the run of the show and were wed soon after.

Imbued with love and nostalgia for a more simple and agrarian America, the production is suitable for all ages and just perfect for the entire family. The acting is outstanding and so are the production values, including Sullivan’s original country music, Marty Burnett’s unfussy hayfield-backed set, M. Scott Grabau’s lighting, Renetta Lloyd’s costumes and Chris Luessmann’s excellent sound design.

“The Voice of the Prairie”
through June 20
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987-D Lomas Santa Fe Dr.
Solana Beach
northcoastrep.org
(858) 481-1055
Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.
Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m.
Tickets $37-$41