Eliseo Roman, Felicia Finley; Photo: Daniel Rader

As we know from disaster movies the worse the situation the more love can bloom in the most curious couples. Roberto Mariposa, whose passion is tourism, and Veronica Mitford, the goofiest character, fall into deep attraction if not love as things progress from fine to fineable. Mariposa, who dances his way through life, is well played by actor Eliseo Román whose lush physical movement often provides a chuckle if not a laugh. Felicia Finley as Veronica is his match with her verbal malfunctions. As the comic couple they are a delight.

Alyse Alan Louis is strong and straightforward with Eloise's mission, so much so that she misses the admiration and verging love coming from Felix Cushman, played with an ingenuous emotional style by Sam Heldt. It isn't until near the end of the play that she begins to understand how close she has come to nearly losing what it is she really is seeking. Heldt brings us a young man almost lost in his open conviction about his feelings. As the son of the "villain" of the piece, and the bass player in the band, he is of little concern to most people, so his song, "The Bass Player's Lament" is a highpoint in the show's first act.

Matt McGrath as the town's mayor, eager to move his little world into the role of major player in the nation's economy, is a comicbook  creation who is transformed into a pained and misunderstood man with emotional challenges. It is a fine performance that hinges on his relationship with Eloise, a girl he cannot comprehend because she is so much like her mother, his now dead wife. I really liked what McGrath does with this role. He wrings sympathy from an audience that should be upset with his blind-sighted ignorance of Eloise's value.

So much in this show hinges on Eloise. Alyse Alan Louis bring the girl into being with an urgency that is off-putting but at the same time is almost mesmerizing. Her scientific jargon is as confusing for the audience as it is for the other characters and that gives her the basic difference that defines the character. Louis spouts the rhetoric perfectly which makes it that much more insane and as the rock quartet sings, everyone, and everything, is "Sinking Into Oblivion."

Others in the band include Cooper Mitford, the drummer, played with great pomp and circumstance by Jorrel Javier. His size is matched by his enthusiasm and his near demise, highlighted by McGrath's song "Save One Life," is one of the highlights of the second act. There is also the irate lesbian teenager, Vera Mariposa, whose blue hair and mannish mannerisms are just right. She puts the world of Fall Springs into a very contemporary place and it is much appreciated.

Ken Marks plays the outsider, the bum, the drunken scientist partner of Eloise's mother who mourns her death more than the Mayor does is just wonderful, particularly when he comes to majestic life in the song "Human Again." It's a grand performance.