‘Curtains’ call

BACKSTAGE musicals have a way of keeping a smile on your face even when you’re wincing at the corniness. And there’s no getting around the corn factor. After all, if the show within the show were any good, who’d bother putting a frame around it? It’s only when the material doesn’t work straight that you’re led behind the scenes to delight at show people making a fuss about the flop they’re desperate to turn around.

“Curtains,” the diverting musical about a lamebrained musical bombing out in Boston, hedges its bets further by turning the whole silly game into a whodunit. Now, if there’s anything that will hook an audience more than a bunch of theater kooks on the bumpy road to Broadway, it’s a good old-fashioned murder mystery. Consider the tuner doubly vaccinated against boredom.

Indeed, “Curtains,” which had its world premiere Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre in a brilliantly directed production by Scott Ellis, does what musicals rarely do anymore: entertain. Though the plot thickens at times like lumpy oatmeal and the hoary shtick (complete with bad honeymoon jokes) groans for cuts, the work still manages to charm. You’re not likely to love “Curtains,” which is rumored to be Broadway bound, but you probably won’t regret spending an evening in its company -- and in these days of American musical drought, that can be enough for multiple Tony Awards.

There’s also the sentimental aspect to factor in. “Curtains” represents one of the last collaborations of John Kander and Fred Ebb, the gentlemanly duo who brought us such delightfully ungentlemanly works as “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” along with a slew of other award-winning titles (“Zorba,” “Woman of the Year,” “The Rink,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman”), not to mention the anthem that Liza, Frank and the Yankees made famous -- “New York, New York.”

Ebb died in 2004, leaving “Curtains,” their longtime work-in-progress, in a state of disarray. Rupert Holmes’ rewrite of Peter Stone’s original book (Stone died in 2003) failed to resolve problems with the script, and there were numbers that still needed to be written. But determined to get their final child onto the stage, Kander decided the only thing to do was troop on without his partner of more than 40 years and finish the job, crossing over into Ebb’s territory to write additional lyrics with the assistance of Holmes.

The result isn’t one of Kander and Ebb’s most scintillating scores (how could it be when so many of the songs are expressly made for “Robbin’ Hood of the Old West,” the ludicrous sendup of a musical stinker that “Curtains” is built around?). And the blatant absence of a genuine showstopper is a considerable handicap. But the production has a few memorable smaller numbers that establish just the right buoyant tone.

The best -- “What Kind of Man?” -- comes quite early in the first act. The year is 1959. “Robbin’ Hood” has just opened at the Colonial Theatre in Boston to lethal reviews. (Not even the Christian Science Monitor can resist taking a potshot.) The producer Carmen Bernstein (Debra Monk), the investor Oscar Shapiro (Michael McCormick), the lyricist Georgia Hendricks (Karen Ziemba) and the composer Aaron Fox (Jason Danieley) are trying not to collapse from the venom spewing out of the newspapers they’re holding. To cope, they give voice to the question that has baffled thespians for ages about critics -- “what kind of man would take a job like that?”

A few choice expletives should be experienced rather than revealed, but the song’s cleverness lies in the way it captures the rollercoaster reality of an out-of-town tryout. One positive review -- from a Cambridge rag -- is all the gang needs to change their tune to “What kind of genius has a mind like that?” Hope springs eternal for show people, even when a majority of naysayers are advising them to drive their star vehicle off a cliff.

Which incidentally isn’t how the talent-free leading lady from Hollywood gets knocked off. But her curiously timed demise injects new life into “Robbin’ Hood” once she’s replaced by someone who can stay in key. That someone is Georgia, who hasn’t been onstage in quite a while, which explains why she’s one of the top suspects in Lt. Frank Cioffi’s oddly histrionic homicide case.

Cioffi (David Hyde Pierce), a solitary Boston cop who lives for his yearly amateur theatrical, might in fact make a better play doctor than a police detective. He has ordered the company not to leave the theater until the murder is solved. In the meantime, he urges everyone to work on the show before it’s rereviewed with its new star. Dispensing shrewd pointers for livening things up, he occasionally has to be reminded that finding the killer (who continues to knock off members of the cast and crew) is the No. 1 priority.

But it’s hard to resist the razzle-dazzle when your dream is to be director-choreographer Gower Champion and your ideal dancer has just appeared before you in the guise of dulcet-voiced Niki Harris (Jill Paice, in a performance that hasn’t quite gelled), a supporting player who quickly earns a headlining place in Cioffi’s heart.

The book throws together more threadbare conceits than can be recounted here. And the sitcom style of the humor -- with laugh lines synchronized as though there were routine commercial breaks -- has trouble sustaining the sophisticated effervescence that’s supposed to separate theater from the rest of the entertainment pack.

These aren’t mere quibbles. Nor is the weakness of “Robbin’ Hood,” the wild, wild West fiasco that mixes cancan with square dance and ragtime and just about anything else. It’s simply not winning enough in its parody to occupy such a crucial spot in the show’s overall scheme.

“In the Same Boat,” the languid bit of ensemble goofiness that everyone (including Cioffi) is trying to rescue, doesn’t quite wow us the way it should at the end. In fact, the only thing worth attending to during any of the “Robbin’ Hood” bits is Rob Ashford’s high-kicking choreography.

“Curtains” can’t manage the joyous balance of “Kiss Me, Kate,” where the burlesqued show within the show enchants in its own right. “Robbin’ Hood” has high-octane moves, but it never sings.

But what fun it is when the actors, playing hardened theater types, give voice to the lunacy of trying to turn a theatrical sow’s ear into a silky blockbuster.

Monk, decked out to resemble a fur-trimmed battleship, has far too many flaccid jokes foisted on her, but her formidable talent is nicely served with “It’s a Business,” the song of a producer who, out to turn her profit, wants nothing to do with Ibsen, Shaw, Moliere or any of those other “Russians” who spell box office disaster.

Ziemba, a Tony winner for “Contact,” has the multitasking musical command (she sings, dances and acts with unostentatious grace) that makes her ideally suited for Georgia, the lyricist who’s more comfortable behind the scenes but better than anyone else in the spotlight.

And Pierce, a performer who practically oozes love for the stage, may have found the theatrical role of his career.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else doing as much with the part of the lonely detective who has such humble passion for art and love. With his amiable presence and crackerjack timing, he couldn’t be a better guide for the audience’s entry into this infectiously wacky world, even if you sometimes wish the writing had given him more texture to work with.

Ellis deserves most of the credit for pulling together the considerable resources on display. It’s not just the giddiness of the cutups (especially Edward Hibbert as the fey, tyrannical English director and Megan Sikora as the producer’s daughter determined to prove she’s got the acting chops). Or in the way everyone’s hilariously set in motion by Ashford’s kinetic jumble. Or Anna Louizos’ fleet stage designs, brightly accentuated by Peter Kaczorowski’s lighting and William Ivey Long’s madcap costumes.

There’s a synergy that brings these elements together that goes beyond mathematics into the headier realm of theatrical science. Though not strictly a rational discipline (and notoriously riddled with error), it has an addictive quality that makes “Curtains” irresistible.

*

‘Curtains’

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Sept. 10

Price: $30 to $95

Contact: (213) 628-2772

Running Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

Jim Newman...Randy Weinstein

Jill Paice...Niki Harris

Patty Goble...Jessica Cranshaw

Noah Racey...Bobby Pepper

Michael X. Martin...Johnny Harmon

Darcie Roberts...Roberta Wooster

Megan Sikora...Bambi Bernstein

Karen Ziemba...Georgia Hendricks

Jason Danieley...Aaron Fox

Debra Monk...Carmen Bernstein

Michael McCormick...Oscar Shapiro

Edward Hibbert...Christopher Belling

David Hyde Pierce...Lt. Frank Cioffi

Robert Walden...Sidney Bernstein

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Additional lyrics by John Kander and Rupert Holmes. Book by Rupert Holmes. Original book and concept by Peter Stone. Directed by Scott Ellis. Choreographed by Rob Ashford. Sets by Anna Louizos. Costumes by William Ivey Long. Lighting by Peter Kaczorowski. Dance arrangements by David Chase. Orchestrations by William David Brohn. Music director David Loud. Sound design by Brian Ronan. Production supervisor Beverley Randolph.