Sunday audiences at Smoke on the Mountain had the chance to come close to the real thing. With Playhouse in the Park operating on emergency lights and no air-conditioning, the Shelterhouse was feeling like it was on a summer night in a North Carolina Baptist church in 1938. The Sanders Family are singing and witnessing together for the first time in several years.

        It was a grand evening, packed with almost two dozen songs. The biggest point of conflict comes when sisters Denise and June get so carried away with a song they do something that might resemble — dancing.

        Smoke isn't new to the Playhouse. It was a hit for the theater in 1993. It's still the easy combination of gospel and bluegrass, eccentric comedy and heart that makes an audience clamor to settle in, set the programs to fanning and join in a rousing “Bringing in the Sheaves.” (It was an especially rousing rendition Sunday night, as it followed the return of electricity to the theater.)

        Fans of the show's sequel, Sanders Family Christmas, will recognize several returning cast members. It feels like a visit with old (talented) friends. New company members make you feel like you want to know them, too.

        There's Psalm and Proverb-quoting matriarch Vera (Constance Baron) and patriarch Burl (Bobby Taylor). Burl not only oversees the family with a firm and kind hand, he plays a lot of instruments. On Sunday night , he spent the first act in layers of costume including a vest and wool jacket.

        There's brother Stanley (Jason Edwards), who stepped away from the righteous path for a while and did prison time.

        Dennis and Denise (Chad Borden, Dionne McGuire Gardner) are teen-age twins. He wants to join the ministry but doesn't much like talking in front of strangers. She wants to be Scarlett O'Hara. They perform a mean “Christian Cowboy.”

        Jonah Marsh returns as elder sister June, who plays cowbells, an oat cannister, the back of a chair (among many, many other singular “instruments”) and offers her own demented sign language interpretation.

        David Hemsley Caldwell has performed in all three Smoke editions at Playhouse and (as always) he's as engaging as can be as Reverend Oglethorpe. The music hidden in his soul just pours forth when the Sanders pay a visit.

        Alan Bailey, who conceived the idea for the show, not surprisingly directs to sweet satisfaction.

        Smoke on the Mountain, through Aug. 5, Playhouse in the Park Shelterhouse, Eden Park. 421-3888.

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