STAGE REVIEW : SONDHEIM’S ‘WHISTLE’ REVISITED

“Into the Woods,” the new Stephen Sondheim musical at the Old Globe Theatre, is virtually sold out through its closing date, Jan. 11. But there’s another choice: A Sondheim show that’s been underground for more than 20 years.

Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ “Anyone Can Whistle” closed after nine performances on Broadway in 1964, leaving behind a worthy original-cast album and the reputation of being a show ahead of its time. It opened Sunday night at the Dupree Studio Theatre in a production good enough to test that theory.

“Anyone Can Whistle” is a protest-musical parading as a satirical musical. The scene is an imaginary town run by a mean-rotten lady mayor (the estimable B.J. Ward) and three mean-rotten male counselors (Sandy Kenyon, Jon Menick, Philip Boardman.) They trick up a religious miracle to bring tourists to town, but then have a problem when a group of nuts from the local asylum--whimsically called “Cookies”--start mixing with the tourists.

The “Cookies” are led by a nice sensible nurse (Ann Morrison). Too sensible. She has to dress up as a French floozie before she can express herself with men. The man here (Rick Podell) is a handsome psychiatrist with the gift of discerning who is a “Cookie” and who is normal--at least he seems to be.

But maybe he’s a “Cookie” himself. Maybe everybody in town is. Maybe everybody in the world is. In that case, it would behoove the world, and particularly we rigid Americans, to let everyone follow his or her own private bent instead of caging people in categories--or actual cages.

Rather than being ahead of its time, “Anyone Can Whistle” was between its times. Its celebration of individual differences anticipates the do-your-own-thing musical of the late 1960s and 1970s. But its form looks back to the political fables of the 1930s. With the Odyssey’s revival so fresh in mind, one is particularly reminded of Weill and Green’s “Johnny Johnson”--the cartooned small town, the ironic and austere score, Sondheim’s most ambitious piece of work for the musical theater up to that time.

Covering all its bases, “Anyone Can Whistle” also would like to be a romantic musical comedy, in which a timid 1950s heroine finally gets up the courage to whistle--and her handsome, offbeat hero appears just in time for the curtain. With all this to achieve, it’s no wonder that the show fails to get any of its tasks accomplished in a thorough way.

Laurents’ book is fuzzily plotted and somewhat shifty in its attitude to its story. It snipes at its bad people, but it seems more irritated by them than enraged. In the end it doesn’t have543256185heroine is either crazy or stupid or venal.

The sourness of tone is far from the real anger and real tenderness of “Johnny Johnson.” The show works off a negative energy, never quite alleviated by the outward-reaching attempts of the inhibited nurse, played and sung with great charm by Morrison. The mayoress is the biggest villain, with the suggestion that there’s something inherently unsuitable for ladies to be in power in the first place.

An advanced show, in some ways; a reactionary one in others. The Dupree production does not make us forget that this venue is, in reality, a flat-floored dance studio. But director Glenn Casale shapes and paces the story well, and the individual performances have musical and dramatic authority; if the ensemble doesn’t remind you of Broadway, the principals do.

And now we know what “Anyone Can Whistle” looks like today--an odd melange of Frank Capra and Franz Kafka, with a promising score by a young composer-lyricist who more than fulfilled his promise. If this revival doesn’t satisfy, it does satisfy the curiosity. It plays at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays, at 8115 W. 3rd St. (213) 466-1767 ‘ANYONE CAN WHISTLE’

A revival of the 1964 musical fable, at the Dupree Studio Theatre. Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Arthur Laurents. Producer Ronald A. Lachman, with Neon Art Productions, Joseph Schiowitz and Joanne Jacobson. Director Glenn Casale. Choreography Carl Jablonski. Musical direction Frank Basile. Set design John Iacovelli. Lighting design Paulie Jenkins. Costume design Bill Hargate. Production stage manager Jill Ragaway. Assistant choreographer Andre Paris. With Ann Morrison, Rick Podell, B.J. Ward, Sandy Kenyon, Jon Menick, Philip Boardman, Cynthia Adams, Floyd Bigornia, Felicia Buell, Greg Dietrich, Ellen Albertini Dow, Gregg A. Engle, David Fuller, Joe Giuffre, Jennifer Anne Hammond, David Holmes, Mari Lewis, Nancy Lorenz, Geordie MacMinn, Viktor Manoel, Muriel Minot, Andrea Paris, James Sturtevant, Judy Swartz, Linda Talcott, Lisa Trank, Louie Trisoliere, Alon Williams, Daniel Wingate. Plays at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays at 8115 West 3rd St. (213) 466-1767.