Meets don't get any cuter. Boy: nice, good looking Raleigh, just medically discharged from the service. Girl: pretty, pageboy-neat and proper Amy, an aspiring Christian missionary. Setting: December 27, 1940, an eastbound train from L.A. carrying the bodies of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Nathaniel West, famous writers like Raleigh hopes to go to New York to become. Tired and put out from visiting a "changed" fiance and then having a pushy seat partner on a previous train, Amy's wary of sitting by a soldier. Then they find they're from the same area in Kentucky. Off and on over time occur more meetings as dreams come down to hometown (Corbin) earth at successive Nibroc (read it backward!) Festivals.
Despite the author's go-down-easy slices of life, spiced with regionalisms, it takes skillful actors to make righteous, middle-class Amy and charming-but-poor Raleigh a good fit. FST's production has them, along with a director who knows how to bring out the vulnerability in a strong woman and the strength in an oft-beaten down man. With sets as simple as the drama and costumes as characterizing as the lighting dialogue, Arlene Hutton's train is definitely in the right station in summertime Florida.
