STAGE REVIEWS : ‘MARRY ME A LITTLE’ : THE SONGS ARE ARE THE THING, NOT THE PLAY

Since 1983, when “Marry Me a Little” first played in Los Angeles, interest in it may well have increased. This hourlong revue of Stephen Sondheim leftovers--songs that were dropped from his other shows--might now attract more than the usual cadre of Sondheim fans. Those who liked “Blue Window” during its long run last year may also want to take a look, for that play’s writer and director, Craig Lucas and Norman Rene, conceived and compiled “Marry Me a Little.”

Nevertheless, Sondheim aficionados will find much more to appreciate than will followers of Lucas and Rene. Their unspoken narrative about the rise and fall of a love affair isn’t nearly as interesting as the songs themselves, and occasionally it’s intrusive or irrelevant. For example, why would two lonely urbanites sing a song (“Pour Le Sport”) that’s ostensibly about the frustrations of playing golf?

At Actors Alley in Sherman Oaks, director Jordan Charney re-arranged the sequence of songs, but some of the transitions are still awkward. He also eliminated the doubt over whether the whole love affair is actually a fantasy. Here, it isn’t. Yet the unanswered questions about the plot remain mildly distracting.

It would be easier to concentrate on the songs in a concert format. They’re certainly capable of carrying the show without any narrative help. Sondheim’s discards make the finished products of most theater composers seem shabby.

Actually, not everything here was previously “lost”; the lush melody of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” later became the prologue to “Follies.” But none of the lyrics in this show can be heard elsewhere, and some of them (“Two Fairy Tales,” “Can That Boy Fox Trot,” “Bang!”) are among Sondheim’s cleverest.

The best combinations of music and lyrics are near the end. The title song is a terrific evocation of romantic ambivalence. “Happily Ever After” and “There Won’t Be Trumpets” are rousing declarations of independence, one for each sex.

Kim Renier and Gordon McManus (accompanied by pianist Steve Renier) polish off these numbers will all the power that’s required, yet they also know what they’re doing in the show’s more delicate moments. As actors, they make as much sense of the nebulous narrative as anyone could expect.

The only moment in which they seem uncomfortable is at the end, when Charney reprises the score’s weakest song, “Who Could Be Blue?” as an encore. The program notes tell us that Hal Prince and Michael Bennett regarded this number as “lugubrious” and therefore dropped it from “Follies”; they were correct. To conclude “Marry Me a Little” with it, accompanied by a tentative hand-shaking sortie into the audience, is to plaster a happy-face emblem over the show’s essential bittersweetness.

Performances are at 4334 Van Nuys Blvd., Fridays at 10:30 p.m. (818) 986-7440.