STAGE REVIEW : ALLEN PUTS SWEETNESS BACK IN ‘CHARITY’

Civic Light Opera will have much better luck with its revival of “Sweet Charity” than it did with its rerun of “South Pacific.” The first wasn’t terrible. There just wasn’t any particular reason to go to see it. There’s a splendid reason to see “Charity.” Her name is Debbie Allen.

Allen is too well-established in TV (“Fame,” etc.) for use of the phrase a star is born. But her work on the big stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion certifies that a star is definitely here. Some parts of “Sweet Charity” don’t stand up, while other parts never did. But there isn’t an instant when Allen fails to give pleasure. Since she’s around almost all the time, you can take that as a recommendation.

Bob Fosse conceived “Sweet Charity” in 1966 for his then-wife, Gwen Verdon. The story concerns a soft-hearted Times Square bimbo named Charity Hope Valentine who keeps having rotten luck with guys--like, they keep throwing her in the lake. Up to now we have identified Charity with Verdon and with Shirley MacLaine, who did the movie.

Allen isn’t out to make you forget these redheads. In fact, she doesn’t seem to realize that anybody else has ever played the part (even though Verdon has been helping her with it and Fosse is back as “production supervisor”). Allen simply gives us her Charity: a girl from, say, East Harlem who has got too much good stuff in her ever to be put down by life for more than 20 minutes at the max.

This approach makes it a new show and not necessarily a shallower one. True, with Verdon and MacLaine one felt the pathos under Charity’s brass-band optimism--inherited, probably, from the show’s source, Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria.” There was even a streak of masochism in the way they kept going back to the wrong guys for more of the same abuse.

But--this being American musical comedy, not “Nights of Cabiria”--those streaks of darkness sometimes played a little speciously. Since the story is a fairy tale anyway (the dance-hall hostess with the heart of gold), I’ll take Allen’s cheerful view of Charity as a healthy, if dizzy, girl for whom the brass band hasn’t necessarily passed by.

She handles the dance-and-song aspects of the show with equal cheer, masking all kinds of technical authority. It’s one of those “natural” performances that make the viewer feel that he or she could get up and do that, to the astonishment of his friends (“If They Could See Me Now”). Some Broadway stars wear you out with their energy. Allen shares hers, a hostess who knows the trick of having a good time at her own party.

The supporting cast also hits its marks, with Fosse’s hand in obvious evidence (John Bowab is official director). Even numbers that are fairly despicable (that smug “River of Life” routine, in which the pre-hippies of the mid-1960s are trashed as riffraff) play shrewdly and well. This show knows what it’s doing.

Everyone seems a little younger and nicer than in previous “Sweet Charity” casts, adding a certain freshness to the cynicism without which no Bob Fosse musical would be complete. Mark Jacoby as that dreamy Italian movie star, Vittorio Vidal, isn’t too far gone into narcissism to be likable, and Michael Rupert as that treacherous wimp Oscar, whom Charity meets at a lecture, means well enough.

Charity’s girlfriends at the dance hall are tough and terrific, especially Bebe Neuwirth and Allison Williams as they proclaim that “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This.” Better performances than this, you don’t get.

The show also has the Fosse look--the derbies, the silhouettes, the thrust of sharp dancers against broad washes of background color. (Robert Randolph repeated his original sets, which still look state of the art.) It’s been a long time since a CLO musical had this strong a sense of the body. “Sweet Charity” never was a great musical, but it has a snap that the summer theater season can use. And it has Debbie Allen.

‘SWEET CHARITY’ A revival of the 1966 Broadway musical at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Presented by Civic Light Opera. Producers Jerome Minskoff, James M. Nederlander, Arthur Rubin, Joseph Harris. Book Neil Simon. Music Cy Coleman. Lyrics Dorothy Fields. Production supervisor Bob Fosse. Choreography reproduced by Gwen Verdon. Director John Bowab. Scenery and lighting Robert Randolph. Costumes Patricia Zipprodt. Musical direction Fred Werner. Orchestrations Ralph Burns. Sound Otis Munderloh. Hair design Phyllis Della. Casting Howard Feuer. Production stage manager Phil Friedman. With Debbie Allen, Dave Gibson, Quin Baird, Jan Horvath, Jeff Shade, Celia Tackaberry, Lacy Darryl Phillips, Adrian Rosario, Fred C. Mann III, Tanis Michaels, Allison Williams, Bebe Neuwirth, Mimi Quillin, Lee Wilkof, Tom Wierney, Carol Alt, Mark Jacoby, Michael Rupert, Irving Allen Lee, Christine Colby, Alice Everett Cox, Dave Gibbson, Kim Morgan Greene, Jan Horvath, Jane Lanier, Allison Renee Manson, Dana Moore, Stanley Perryman, Stephanie Pope, Adrian Rosario, Michelle O’Steen, Kelly Patterson. Plays Tues.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7, with matinees Wed. and Sat. at 2. Closes Aug. 31. 135 N. Grand Ave. (213) 216-6666.