Necktie Party The Conversion of Buster Drumwright opens at Germantown Community Theatre. by CHRIS DAVIS The mob is mighty angry (as mobs tend to be). They want revenge (as mobs so often do). The rabble has gathered outside the jailhouse with torches, hoes, shovels, lockblade knives, clenched fists, and gritted teeth. One man carries a jug of gasoline to pour over the convicted murderer. He wants to burn him alive, to hear the agonizing screams of the evil Buster Drumwright, and to give that unrepentant sinner a brief taste of the hellish eternity that waits for him on the other side. From the window of his cell, the wicked convict rains down cold-blooded commentary on the gathering rabble, egging them on. He knows he's going to die one way or the other, and as far as he's concerned, the sooner the better. Only a dutiful deputy and his double-barreled shotgun stands between the mass murderer and the murderous masses. The steady-handed lawman's going to make sure that Drumwright dies legally -- swinging on the end of a rope. This is the fever pitch that begins Germantown Community Theatre's admirable production of Jesse Hill Ford's wordy but worthwhile murder ballad The Conversion of Buster Drumwright. Over the course of the next two-and-a-half hours things only get more intense. The script follows the family Hedgepath, who has recently lost two relations to the brutal Drumwright. These no-account, wife-beating Hedgepath peckerwoods are god-fearing, snake-mean, and determined to exact bloody revenge on the murderer before the gallows are ever built. Their scheme is as brilliant as it is repulsive. Brother Ocie, disguised as a preacher to get past the deputy, aims to save the soul of the doomed Drumwright. If the killer will agree to be baptized, Ocie will hold his head under the water until he drowns "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, amen." It is a plan that nearly works. I don't want to give anything away, but at the moment it looks like a Frank Capra ending is on the hoof, Sam Peckinpah rears his ugly head. The tragedy escalates and things get bloody. As the surly Drumwright Steven Burk does a bang-up job. It is almost impossible to look at Burk's boyish face or hear his bell-clear voice and ever imagine that this guy could go on a killing spree. Over the course of the evening, he makes you believe. Due to his thorough physical commitment, Drumwright's baptism/drowning sequence is one of the most vivid and horrifying images to appear on a local stage in recent memory. It alone is worth the price of admission. Chris Hart does a respectable job as Ocie Hedgepath, a former drifter out to set things right with his family. When he tries to pass himself off as a preacher, however, Hart adopts a stilted televangelical voice and sometimes stumbles over his words. He would be much better off, and much more convincing, as a plain-talking man of the cloth The curious thing about The Conversion of Buster Drumwright is how it can be so intense, and yet move so very slow. Keith Salter functions as the show's balladeer, a semi-scrupulous minister wandering in and out of the action singing plaintive gospel songs. He carries a banjo and brags of his picking prowess, but he never plays it. He sings all the songs a capella, and although he has a great voice and a super presence, it is a big mistake. Director Michael Holliday should have at least used recorded banjo music, not only in Salter's scenes, but throughout the performance as well. It would have helped a great deal to set the scene and the pace. As a critic, I get into hot water every time I talk about professionalism. When I hold our theater folk to professional standards, I'm rudely reminded that most of our local actors are volunteers. When I call Memphis an amateur town people call me on the phone and pitch a bitch about how professional all of the "volunteers" are. It's the old lose-lose situation, but here I go again. Of all the theaters in Shelby County (excluding pay-to-play TheatreWorks), Germantown tends to be the most amateurish. They get some good people, but casts can be wildly uneven. Over the years they have prominently featured performers who should have never been allowed on the stage in the first place; not even in a non-speaking role. Technically speaking, the facility a hopelessly low ceiling which makes for truly boring lighting plots. Entrances and exits are a logistical nightmare because the stage is about the size of a postage stamp and there is virtually no wing space to work with. But time after time they schedule hopelessly large shows into their rinky-dink space, and somehow they manage to pull it off. In this case, Holliday's versatile set (Southern-Gothic meets German Expressionism) aids tremendously in cramming this too-big show into a too-small space. And though the cast is uneven (as Germantown casts can be), the performers have been used to their best advantage. The Conversion of Buster Drumwright is one of the most exciting things Germantown has staged in years, and it should be a contender when this year's theater awards get handed out. You can e-mail Chris Davis at davis@memphisflyer.com. The Conversion of Buster Drumwright, Through March 19th, Germantown Community Theatre