MUSICAL ‘TIME MACHINE’

What better way to usher in 1987 than with a little bit of high-tech time travel? That’s the philosophy behind “The Time Machine--The Musical,” a new adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic, which opens Wednesday (New Year’s Eve) at the Gene Dynarski Theatre--and the only opening in a week much given over to ushering in the New Year with other kinds of celebrations.

“It all started five years ago,” explained director Saba Moor, co-creator of the show with her songwriter-husband, Bob Verne, and his partner Steve Altman. “Ever since he was a little boy, Steve had wanted to do a musical version of ‘The Time Machine.’ It was such an exciting idea that we just dropped everything else we were doing and joined him.”

For those who might need a refresher course, here’s the story: “An inventor time-travels into the future and meets a group of people called Elois, a wonderful, innocent race. Then there are the bad guys, the Morlocks. They raise Elois like we raise cattle--to eat them.” (In the new version, there is a half-Eloi/half-Morlock named Alx, and the inventor’s cronies--instead of just being ordinary men--are famous figures of the day: Albert Einstein, J. P. Morgan, Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.)

“We’ve also given the main character a name, William Parks,” Moor continued. “But instead of going into the future, finding the race and being totally in awe of them, he teaches them through fun and magic--which he’s learned from Houdini. And he saves the Elois, starts them over again. The Morlocks do die, but in a beautiful way: He defeats them through the light. But there’s no violence. It’s a very ‘G-rated’ show.”

Adding to the general entertainment is a razzle-dazzle collection of technical effects.

“We were so lucky,” Moor stressed. “All of our friends are in special effects and magic--and they all got behind us. We think the reason they couldn’t do the show on Broadway (over the years, it was optioned three times, but never produced) was because it was so expensive to put on.

“But we’ve got Bob Zraick, who’s a creative consultant (at Universal Studios and the Magic Castle) of grand-scale illusions. He’s designed the entire production, does all these wonderful things--including make the time capsule disappear--and he’s ours. And we’ve got Steve Johnson doing the special effects makeup: he did ‘Greystoke’ and ‘Ghostbusters,’ won an Academy Award for ‘An American Werewolf in London.’ We’ve got a choreographer, Cate Caplin, who did ‘Marilyn’ and ‘West Side Story’ on Broadway.

“We’ve got Tim Beckman of Disney Imagineering, who wants to experiment with lighting effects on the stage. So they happen to be gracing our project, bringing in their engineers, their lights. Another $100,000 production value for nothing. And Hugo Zuccarelli has created the sound, which the hearing-impaired can hear. I can’t tell you how it works, but you sit in a seat and the sound travels around you, in front of you, through you.”

With that amount of hardware, is she worried that the play might be overshadowed by its trimmings?

“We have a feeling that the story can hold up to all the effects,” assured the director, whose training includes dance, stunt work and directing/producing music videos. “You see, it’s really not an effects show. At the beginning, it was just Steve, Bob and me singing these songs on the piano in our (converted) garage--but everyone who saw it said, ‘This is wonderful .’ ”

The interim period between conception and production, she added, hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm.

“Lately, we’ve been so busy that there hasn’t been time to worry. Of course, putting all your eggs into one basket is exactly what they tell you not to do. Oh, well. This year we were either going to buy a house and start our production company for real, or do this project. But we haven’t regretted it for a minute. Everyone involved in this show--my husband calls us hard-core fools--has believed in this from the very beginning. If it doesn’t work, you can find us next week on 6th and Main.”