The Red Clay Ramblers are trying to tell us something about being an anomaly; it comes easily to them. The band from Chapel Hill has been in New York since January, doing a Broadway show called Fool Moon, a classic combination of physical comedy and accompanying music—with a twist. Instead of an orchestra in the pit or taped background sounds, we are treated to live music by a band right on the stage (some of them even wearing funny hats), who not only provide rhythm enough to rock the house, but interact with the actors as well.

It's halftime at the Richard Rogers Theater. The show has let out for intermission. As usual, the audience is milling around outside the theater. But they aren't quite sure what they've just seen—or rather heard, since the two actors in the show don't say a word. What kind of music is it?

Sivya Romischer, of Cherry Hill, N.J., says, "I think it's bluegrass! It's not country."

Michael Riva, who lives in New York, has some idea: "It's Cajun. New Orleans. bluegrass...."

"It's country westem and they play cockail cafe jazz..." says Manhattanite Judy Meadmore.

"The band is the best part. I enjoyed the music the most—it's country western, jazz, folk, gospel." says Rabbi Steve Greenberg.

The accepted definition of the band's current sound is Americana. Bland Simpson, the one official Rambler not in residence to perform Fool Moon, says, "We play virtually every style of American popular music before 1965-70. We are a pan-American band.

Whatever it is, they look like they are having a blast playing it during the show. The two actors, Bill Irwin and David Shiner, combine elements of Charlie Chaplin, Don Rickles, Marcel Marceau and Robin Williams, wordlessly and hilariously. The Ramblers are always on stage. At times, they distract the audience or act as foils, taking the blame for bungled timing during a soft-shoe or being maligned for playing corny music. They participate in several skits, and their blank stares while playing a particularly hopping tune keep the audience choking with laughter for a good two minutes.

The Ramblers’ connection with Sam Shepard led to meeting Irwin and Shiner. The band first worked with the actor/playwright on his play A Lie of the Mind in 1985-86, then scored his film Far North in 1988. In addition to providing the soundtrack for Shepard’s new film Silent Tongue, the Ramblers have an on-screen role. The band plays…a band, which backs up a traveling medicine show. The hucksters are played by Irwin and Shiner.

The role turned out to foreshadow their current collaboration with the actors. Simpson gives the scenario that led to the Broadway show: “While working on the film, we felt very quickly that as we watched Bill [Irwin] and David [Shiner] we were witnessing the birth of what could be a great American comedy team.

"When we heard that David had invited Bill to join him in the Serious Fun Festival [at Lincoln Center last] July, we were thrilled. A few days later David came over and said that he and Bill thought it would be tons more fun if we did it with them."

The performance at Serious Fun delighted audiences and critics so much that a Broadway version opened Feb. 25. In her review, New York Newsday's Linda Winer wrote: "The irresistible Red Clay Ramblers...for the most part don't even try to play anything that relates to the show. Instead, [they] offer down-home incidental music that is as authentic and modern, in its way, as anything Irwin and Shiner are trying to do in the world of the fool. Besides, the band looks great."

New York Times theater critic Frank Rich thought well of the group, too. He said, "[the] music making is perfection but [their] personalities are authentically idiosyncratic." In the same paper, David Richards put it more simply: "They're a bunch of real screwballs. The bass player sports bib overalls. The pianist wears a fez. They fit right in."

Tommy Thompson, senior member of the band, agrees that the band's eccentricities and the show's echo each other. He describes the trouble producers had in figuring out a promotional angle for Fool Moon: "The whole show is odd—not just our music. [The producers] thought, ‘We can't say mime: nobody will come. We can’t say bring the kids because people will think it’s a kiddie show.  We can’t say clowns.” I don’t know how we ever got people to come.”

In the 20-odd years since the Ramblers sprouted out of North Carolina, they have evolved into a hybrid group uniquely suited for the vast array of jobs they have taken on. In addition to the recently completed film with Shepard, there is hope that a musical version of Doug Marlette’s comic strip Kudzu will be off the ground within a year.

Marlette, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist who lives in Hillsborough, began working with the Ramblers on this project about a month ago. “They don’t screw around,” he said recently of his brainstorming sessions with Simpson, Jack Herrick and Thompson.” They work hard,” he says. “There are people who have a hard time subsuming their egos for the project. The Ramblers are not like that. This is the most fun I’ve ever had in a collaborative situation.”

“We are probably going to continue to be involved in theater,” says fiddler/singer Clay Buckner of the band’s future. “There are very few [bands] in the country that do the kind of music that we do and that are as deep into theater as we are. By the end of [the Fool Moon run], we will have reached audiences that would not have known we existed otherwise.”

Another project already in the works is a “three-millionth re-write” of their musical play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas. The Old West adaptation of Shakespeare’s play includes the band as Falstaff’s “gang of rustics.” A production of the play is scheduled to close Cincinnati Theater in the Park this summer, with a possible U.S. tour to follow.

“We would like to do another album by Christmas,” adds Herrick. Their most recent album on Durham’s Sugar Hill label, Rambler, was released about a year ago. “We also want to get back on the concert track,” says Herrick. “Rambler has done well considering that the band never goes anywhere or does anything in support of it.”

This Broadway run did put their concert schedule on hold; the show is booked to run through August. But there was one gig they did not have to cancel or refuse: The State University of New York at Purchase, located about 40 miles north of Manhattan, had long ago contracted the Ramblers to play in their Performing Arts Center Series. The date was rearranged so it would be on a night when there was no show.

Sunday, May 1, is it. After four months of “eight shows a week” on Broadway, Thompson said that when the lights went down and the concert began, he felt like he was “in a foreign land and don’t know the language.” He rallied, however, his sweet ballads and story-songs winning over a sparse-but-appreciative audience.

Getting out of Purchase is no easy task, but when the concert was over and the band straggled out the stage door they found a welcome surprise – a superstylish ride back to the city. The Red Clay Ramblers were pretty sure they were the only North-Carolina-based-Americana-music-playing band riding around in a black stretch limo in Westchester County at the moment. In fact, they were betting on it. Bland Simpson gave odds. Tommy Thompson quietly recollected that the few times he’d ever ridden in a limousine there had always been at least six people in it, defeating the luxury but not the fun. Jack Herrick found the overhead control panel and entertained with directional air-conditioning and moon-roof adjustments. Clay Buckner seemed to be making a deal with the driver in the front seat as Rob Ladd recounted for Chris Frank the tale of his wedding ride in such a vehicle.

To try and pigeonhole an eclectic and on-the-go bunch like the Ramblers is difficult and unwise. But a good motto goes a long way, and Chapel Hill writer Lee Smith, who has known the Ramblers for approximately 20 years, offers the one that they would perhaps most like to hear: “You never know what they’ll do next.”