‘SOME ENCHANTED EVENING’ : GEM STAGES HOMAGE TO RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN

In “Some Enchanted Evening”--the homage to Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II now playing at Garden Grove’s Gem Theatre--one performer makes the observation: “The work of Rodgers & Hammerstein is . . . forever.”

It just seems that long.

Although the last Dick-and-Oscar show, “The Sound of Music,” was composed 25 years ago, the musicals are as solidly entrenched, as mass-adored as ever.

Orange County’s own community-and-dinner theater circuit has been R&H; territory for years. Hardly a season passes without a “The Sound of Music,” “The King and I,” “South Pacific” or “Carousel” somewhere on the circuit. And the revue, “Some Enchanted Evening,” is the ultimate compliment: a full survey of the 17-year Rodgers & Hammerstein output, from the lofty (“You’ll Never Walk Alone”) to the inane (“Grant Ave.”).

In the energetic, pleasantly performed Gem show, which opened last weekend and runs through Dec. 21 at the 172-seat playhouse, it’s plain why the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals were so successful as “all family” entertainment.

The plots were so folksily uplifting, so boy-meets-girl sweet. They were a shrewd interplaying of the usual musical-comedy frivolity, with just enough solemnity and pathos to pass for a new kind of musical drama in the 1940s and early 1950s. The songs were written as integral parts of the plot, not aimed at being Hit Parade ditties.

If Hammerstein’s lyrics too often drifted into formula schmaltz, Rodgers’ melodies were a constant pleasure--elegantly light, charmingly facile, music to fit every little occasion.

At the Gem, the homage paid by the five-member cast is at times too zealously sung, too artificially acted, too busily danced. There’s an odd sense that this youthful, well-meaning troupe may be trying to belt out, to sell Rodgers & Hammerstein. Just in case.

Take the revue’s most extended scene: a conversation between Anna and the king. It borders on a quick-sketch spoof, particularly George Champion’s king, who out-struts and out-mugs even the late Yul Brynner.

Champion, fortunately, gives us more restrained renditions of “Younger Than Springtime” and “If I Loved You”--the later a duet with Pippa Winslow. Other duets fare just as nicely, including “When the Children Are Asleep” with Donna Berg and John Vaughan, and “I Enjoy Being a Girl” with Berg and Joy Matthews.

Indeed, the best moments in this revue (directed and choreographed by Denise Dell Reiss, with music direction by Robert DeBrot) are the simply staged ones: in short, Rodgers & Hammerstein taken straight on, without distractions, embellishments and foolishness.

With her strong, deep voice, Matthews proves the most effective at this sort of dramatic simplicity. She delivers “Hello, Young Lovers” and “Love, Look Away” with a poignant directness. She even gives freshness to that pseudo-inspirational hymn, “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” from “The Sound of Music.”

This is the Rodgers & Hammerstein that most audiences prefer to remember: creators of many of the theater’s most appealing songs--and of one of the most bankable of American show genres.