STAGE REVIEW : ‘42ND STREET’ AT THE NEW FREEDMAN

Anaheim’s new Freedman Forum, which opened Tuesday night with “42nd Street,” may be an idea whose time has come and gone.

It’s a throwback to the hardtop music tents of the 1950s and 1960s, with actors running up and down the aisles and a circular stage that imposes its shape on all the dance patterns. This time the stage revolves. Happily for the “42nd Street” dancers, it doesn’t revolve too often.

The virtue of arena staging is that it puts a large audience relatively close to the show. The Freedman Forum (its builder, Leo Freedman, also built Melodyland in the 1960s) seats 2,300 people, and its outer ring of seats is within 50 feet of the curved stage. Comfortable seats, too, with good leg room.

But the viewer doesn’t feel that close. The stage itself is big, maybe another 50 feet in diameter, and when a performer is working the other side of the house, you’re aware that he’s a good distance away.

There’s also a sense of being momentarily excluded from the energy flow of the show. Director Phillip Randall and choreographer Jon Engstrom try to make things interesting from every angle, but the danger there is hubbub, and some of the dance numbers fall into it. Focus is a problem, and we don’t all register the moment where the uppity Broadway star (Constance Towers) twists her ankle.

The circular stage is perfect for “We’re in the Money,” where the girls dance on rolls of silver dollars. It also supports the abstract montage where the plucky chorus girl (Lisa Lujan) masters the star part overnight. But it’s not very good at representing a specific place--certainly not a Broadway theater at curtain time. No curtain.

The constant aisle traffic is a distraction, and could lead to some nasty collisions if a customer needed to use the bathroom. Special tunnels for the actors’ use could have been built, but that would have added to the cost of the building (reported at $8 million). One lawsuit might wipe out the economy.

The house’s low ceiling helps the acoustics (mikes are still needed), but induces a slightly stuffy feeling, as if it were a basement theater. All in all, it’s a disappointment that the Freedman Forum was content to replicate a theater design that always did have some bugs in it, rather than profiting from the experience of 30 years of theater architecture.

The show is not bad. Constance Towers has fun playing a nasty lady instead of a goody-goody, and Lisa Lujan is swell as young Peggy Sawyer from Pennsylvania. Peter Marshall as a temperamental director? Well, no--but he sings “Lullaby of Broadway” rather nicely.

Everyone can hoof, and everyone does, with Engstrom’s choreography following Gower Champion’s on most of the curves. “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” has a change, prompted by the arena setting. The Pullman cars are kept on the siding--i.e., the aisles--and the girls nestle down in their scanties on the stage. Eeek, a man! (Richard Doran). As in the song, it’s the dames that we come to see. But the whole ensemble is young and healthy. And their costumes--very important in arena theater--are outstanding: vivid, clingy and probably fun to dance in. The program credits them to “V. Aldrich,” presumably Theoni V. Aldredge, who did the Broadway costumes.

Tuesday’s show was preceded by a ribbon-cutting ceremony that took forever. So did parking in the adjoining structure. But then every theater’s opening night has problems. Maybe the Freedman Forum will grow on us.

‘42ND STREET’ A musical, at the Freedman Forum. Songs by Al Dubin, Harry Warren. Book by Michael Stewart, Mark Bramble. Director, producer Phillip Randall. Musical director Edward Morris. Choreography Jon Engstrom. Scenic design Henry C. Lickel. Lighting Susan Bowman. Costumes V. Aldrich. Production stage manager Dan Langhoffer. Executive producer Leo Freedman. With Gene Castle, Michael Reno, Paul Del Vecchio, Gwen Hillier Lowe, Carol Swarbrick, Richard Doran, Michael Lee Wright, Lisa Lujan, Anne Marie Roller, Nancy Bickel, Peter Marshall, Constance Towers, Lyle Kanouse, Ed Krieger, Jim Carey, Barbara Carlton, Janie Dale, Terry Mason, Elizabeth Stover, John Bazzell, Dennis Daniels, Lloyd Gordon, Jeanne O’Connell, Roberta Souder, Scott A. Lane, Glen Shiroma, Mark Harryman, Charles Eddie Baker, William Strickland. Plays Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8:30 p.m.; Sundays at 7:30 p.m., with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. at Broadway and 42nd Street, Anaheim; (213) 410-1062 or (714) 634-1300.