STAGE REVIEW : WELCOME TO ‘CABARET’--FOR A NEW GENERATION

It’s startling to realize that even the movie of “Cabaret” is 15 years old. This means there’s a whole generation who haven’t seen it on stage. Harold Prince’s revival at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion allows them the opportunity, and will also interest those who remember his original 1966 staging, of which this is by no means a Xerox.

It does have Joel Grey. It would be hard to imagine “Cabaret” without him. As everybody knows, he plays the little rouged fellow who welcomes the world each night to the hottest spot in Berlin, the Kit Kat Klub. At the Kit Kat Klub, you don’t have to know German to find a friend. All it takes is money.

As “Cabaret’s” lord of misrule, Grey is as prurient and as precise as he was 20 years ago. There’s something almost surgical about that nasal voice and that insinuating cane. There’s also something eerily innocent. He’s a ventriloquist’s dummy come to life, exempt from the rules.

Love with a gorilla, love with two ladies--any combination is possible in Grey’s cabaret. (Did he always do the “Two Ladies” number in short pants?) But every specialty has its price. The bill will always come. And after the place is closed, the waiters sing a song of their own, about mountains and a new tomorrow. All this is familiar, but Grey has added a certain officiousness as he lights a cigar in the “offstage” scenes. It’s 1929 and he’s thinking ahead. We can see him in a uniform in a couple of years, possibly helping Herr Goebbels to stamp out foreign decadence. A very practical sprite.

Grey’s emcee is what he was, but more so. In other places, there are changes. The bulk of “Cabaret” is given to the love story of Sally Bowles (Alyson Reed) and Clifford Bradshaw (Gregg Edelman). Reed’s Sally is less of a madcap than before, more a young woman trying to find herself--and making the wrong choice.

There’s real weight attached to the moment when she comes through the black curtains to sing her final “Cabaret” number. Up to then, however, this Sally could be more fun.

Clifford, it is now indicated, is slow with women because he is also attracted to men. This is a lift from the movie. But the movie dramatized his conflict. Merely slipping it into the record doesn’t give him any more life as a character. He’s still a cardboard one, and his scenes with Sally still drag.

The older lovers, Fraulein Schneider, the German, and Herr Schultz, the Jew, have been interestingly reconceived. Where Lotte Lenya and Jack Gilford were warm, Regina Resnik and Werner Klemperer are--not cold, exactly, but wary. Each has been alone too long to trust sudden emotion. A love affair between them will only sustain so much outside pressure.

Resnik brings enormous presence to her role and she is in splendid voice. (By 1966, Lenya hardly had a voice at all.) But Resnik doesn’t get too grand for the part. It’s a real characterization, and so is Klemperer’s. Too bad this revival drops “Meeskite,” not only a charming song but the one that makes Schultz a marked man. The dialogue that replaces it doesn’t improve on it.

Resnick’s and Klemperer’s “pineapple” song gets a wonderful response, maybe because by that time in the evening we can use a little old-fashioned sentiment, as opposed to the boilerplate numbers that Cliff and Sally sing.

Ron Field’s restaging of the sardonic cabaret numbers (garter belts again by Patricia Zipprodt) feels darker than before--physically darker, even.

This doesn’t lessen their effectiveness as crowd-pleasers, especially with a crowd that is not particularly sensitive to nuance. There was a time when the punch line of the gorilla number took people aback--”She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” Friday night it got a big laugh at the Pavilion. We have come a long way in the ‘80s, but it’s not always clear in which direction. ‘CABARET’ A revival of the musical, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Music John Kander. Lyrics Fred Ebb. Book Joe Masteroff. Presented by Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Produced by Barry and Fran Weissler. Director Harold Prince. Dances and cabaret numbers staged by Ron Field. Musical director Donald Chan. Musical supervisor Don Pippin. Costumes Patricia Zipprodt. Lighting Marc B. Weiss. Sound Otts Munderloh. Scenic design David Chapman, after Boris Aronson’s original design. Hair design Phyllis Della Illien. Assistant director Ruth Mitchell. Assistant to Field Bonnie Walker. Orchestrations Don Walker, with Michael Gibson. Musical coordinator John Monaco. Associate producer Alecia Parker, in association with Phil Witt. With Joel Grey, Gregg Edelman, David Staller, David Vosburgh, Regina Resnik, Nora Mae Lyng, Werner Klemperer, Ruth Gottschall, Alyson Reed, Sheila Cooper, Barbara Merjan, Panchali Null, Eve Potfora, Sharon Lawrence, Jon Vandertholen, Mark Dovey, Jim Wolfe, Gregory Schanuel, Laurie Crotchet, Noreen Evans, Caitlin Larsen, Mary Rotella, Stan Chandler, Lars Rosager, Bill Derifield, Karen Fraction, Mary Munger, Steve Potfora, Michelann Sisti. Performance schedule: This week, Tuesday-Saturday at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. After June 30: Mondays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays. Closes Aug. 1. Tickets $17.50-$39.50. (213) 410-1062.