Most college students, even those from rural areas, didn’t experience the Iowa farm crisis in 1982. Family farmers had to borrow at high interest rates in order to pay for their crops, livestock, farm equipment and living expenses.

“Farmer Song” is about one family caught in the middle of the crisis struggling to make ends meet and transition out of the dying farm life. Written by Joe Hynek, graduate student in mechanical engineering, “Farmer Song” made its debut performances at the Maintenance Shop of the Memorial Union.

The main problem with the show is that it deals with issues particular to rural Iowa, especially ones that happened before most current college students were born. Although the farming economy is experiencing some of the same fundamental problems that were devastating in the ’80s, “Farmer Song” refers to farm life so specifically that it’s hard for audiences to relate to it if they don’t come from that lifestyle. Urban people and Iowans who didn’t farm won’t understand what it takes to bale hay or manage a farm.

On the other hand, there is probably no better place to debut such a musical than Iowa. Most of the crowd at the M-Shop looked like middle-aged farmers who had survived the farm crisis. For them, this show was very real. It dealt with personal issues such as auctioning off items of sentimental value as a farm went under, having a tornado tear apart crops and the tough economy.

Although the idea of a musical about farmers is intriguing, the script needs improvement. Some of the townspeople, including a crooked Russian tractor salesman, seem superfluous. They detract from the story of a nuclear family, the Whitbys, who have to leave their farm, only to have their future son-in-law, Carl Pitney, played by Hynek, buy it and struggle to make it profitable. Some of the dialogue seemed old and didn’t help drive the family toward its goal – to ultimately pull together and keep the farm.

However, some of these problems with the dialogue could have simply arisen from difficulty in hearing the actors speak. Although allowing for audience interaction, the M-Shop provided a very crowded space for the actors to perform. It wasn’t an ideal location for movement or sound.

On top of the location’s poor sound quality, the characters spoke in accents, some of which were clearly understood and some of which made words mushy. This carried over into the songs, when some actors retained their Southern accents, which fit the style of music more appropriately than the classical singing some performers used.

What the musical did well was capture an ironic sense of humor about farming and small-town life in its songs. The songs bought into very true stereotypes of the personalities and lifestyles of these rural people, and some of the lines were humorous because of this. Live accompaniment provided by the Onion Creek Band, a group that has been playing traditional music around Iowa for almost 30 years, added to the show. It was fun to hear and fit the setting and story well.

“Farmer Song” has a lot of potential, but it wasn’t executed as well as it could have been here. Granted, the performance space wasn’t very accommodating, and the actors did as well as they could with the limited stage. The show presents an important time in Iowa history, and it’s sometimes very sad in its realistic portrayal of the hardships of rural life.

However, “Farmer Song” will find a more receptive audience in an older crowd familiar with the challenges of sustaining a farm.