NOSTALGIC LOGAN REVUE BRINGS BROADWAY TO UCI

Joshua Logan likes the folksy familiarity of the small revue he’s bringing to UC Irvine’s Fine Arts Village Theatre on Friday at 8 p.m.

“I tell a few stories about Broadway and Hollywood. I sing a little--some Berlin, Rodgers, Loewe. It’s all very casual,” explained the 77-year-old director-producer by phone recently from New York.

“Joshua Logan’s Musical Moments”--which also will be presented at 8 p.m. tonight at Pepperdine University in Malibu and Saturday at UC Riverside--is just that: a stage turn for Logan as show-biz raconteur and golden-pop balladeer.

This sort of nostalgia trip isn’t new to Logan. He and his actress-wife, Nedda, backed by a four-member troupe of singers and musicians, have been taking the revue to theaters and clubs across the country for the past decade. The last time the Logans played Southern California was in 1979.

“I never get tired of doing these revues. Instead of directing other people, this time it’s me up there. I love that sense of direct contact, of getting my own laughs and applause,” said Logan, who usually does about 20 such appearances a year.

Although he tackles show tunes by some of the most revered songwriters, his singing voice, Logan admitted, is one of his lesser talents. “Call it a composer’s voice. Irving Berlin has one. I can’t carry a tune, but I believe I can put across the lyrics. Somehow, people seem to like it.” Laughing, he added, “Frankly, I don’t see how people can stand my voice.”

But Logan as consummate anecdotist is another matter. As anyone who’s read his published recollections (“Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life” in 1976 and “Movie Stars, Real People and Me” in 1978) knows, his backstage stories are legion.

Small wonder. His career covers a lot of ground, a lot of personalities and a lot of successes and failures.

Consider Logan the Princeton undergraduate, who was part of a clan of aspiring actors that included Henry Fonda and James Stewart, and who journeyed to Moscow to get pointers straight from the fabled stage director Konstantin Stanislavsky.

The Logan once tormented by manic-depressive collapses (he was institutionalized in 1940 and 1953), but who recovered dramatically as a result of his use of lithium carbonate. And the hit-maker who directed such Broadway smashes as “Mister Roberts,” “South Pacific” (his Pulitzer Prize winner), “Picnic” and “Fanny,” as well as the memorable film version of “Picnic.”

From “Annie Get Your Gun” comes one of his favorite anecdotes. “We needed a one-upmanship song between Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton. We told Irving (Berlin) we needed it fast. My God, he wrote it--’Anything You Can Do’--in a six-minute taxi ride down Broadway.”

And Logan tells this one about his New York neighbor, the legendary recluse Greta Garbo. They had met years ago through friends. Once, during a chance encounter in an elevator, Garbo mentioned to Logan, “You’ll have to drop by and visit sometime.” To Garbo’s shock, Logan accepted on the spot. Recalled Logan, “That was awfully cheeky of me, wasn’t it?”

There’s the Logan of later years, when his string of hits had run out. His last production to reach Broadway, the 1980 comedy “Horowitz and Mrs. Washington,” was as short-lived as most Logan productions of this period. His ill-fated musical, “Miss Moffat,” which Bette Davis attempted a decade ago, is still on the shelf.

Today, Logan is regarded as a theatrical patriarch. “People are always asking me about the state of the theater. I tell them, ‘Everyone says it’s been going downhill, but people have been saying that for 20 or 30 years,’ ” said Logan, who teaches stage and film directing, writing and acting on the campus circuit.

“I don’t think Broadway is headed in any particular direction at all. We just keep going until someone suddenly comes up with a new idea and knocks us all silly--like what they’ve done in ‘A Chorus Line’ or ‘La Cage aux Folles.’ ”

However, another recent major musical, Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George,” leaves Logan cold. “I hated it. Sondheim is the most brilliant in the world--when he’s writing lyrics. But he’s a poor musician. I find his music so lacking in warmth.”

Creatively restless as ever, Logan continues to put most of his energy into the theater. A few years ago, he directed a new version of “Carmen” for the Shreveport Symphony in Louisiana. He is now revising “Huck and Jim on the Mississippi,” the musical he wrote with composer Bruce Pomahac, who is the pianist in the current revue. Logan is also considering a new production of either “Charley’s Aunt” or “Gypsy.”

Observed Logan, who turned 77 last Saturday: “I’ve always said the theater is my life. I’ve worked with many great, magical people. I’m still working, still active. I have no complaints. I’ve been very lucky--extraordinarily so.”