STAGE / NANCY CHURNIN : The Secret of the ‘Phantom’ and Other British Musicals

Blame Andrew Lloyd Webber if British musicals are more than just a “Phantom” haunting the country from coast to coast.

Never mind that Americans invented the form, says Anthony Bowles, the British composer now in San Diego to oversee tonight’s West Coast premiere of his musical “The Mandrake” at the North Coast Repertory Theatre.

Webber has taken the musical in an epic direction that restores operatic themes and virtually dispenses with the book, as in “Phantom of the Opera,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Evita.”

At the same time, Bowles said, “American musical theater has lost its way because it lost the knack of doing a musical about people’s relationships with each other and about what makes people--instead of things--tick. They’re turning to their navels and not making contact with other people.”

Bowles was the original musical director for the early productions of Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Evita,” as well as his one and only disaster, “Jeeves.” Webber was scarcely 20 when the two started working together.

“The English musical theater will never be the same after Webber,” Bowles predicted. “Being there at the birth of it all was exciting.”

Of course, theories are not necessarily neat. Webber’s “Cats” and “Starlight Express” are hardly stories of epic relationships, and, indeed, their success mystifies Bowles, who calls them “backward moves” from “Evita.”

“Maybe it’s the novelty,” he said.

Bowles describes his own “Mandrake” as old-fashioned by Webber’s standards. Where Webber’s musicals are all music, “The Mandrake” integrates music and text. Still, its subject matter, a satirical treatise on greed and lust based on the work of Machiavelli, is universal, and the music, Bowles hopes, humanizes what would otherwise be unlikable characters.

Bowles left London for San Diego via New York on a sort of busman’s holiday when Andrew Barnicle, associate artistic director of the North Coast Rep, asked him to advise his company on the “Mandrake” production.

Bowles had just finished the musical direction of “Me and My Girl” in London and was looking for a break when Barnicle, who starred in America’s only other production of “The Mandrake” at the Soho Repertory Theatre five years ago, told Bowles he wanted to direct his musical at North Coast.

After the opening, it will be back to New York and then London, where the latest Webber creation, “Aspects of Love,” is being readied for its Broadway invasion. But even Bowles hopes that the British blowout of the American musical is but a passing phase.

“I grew up with everyone saying you look to America for musical theater. And I am still a prostrate admirer of everything by Gershwin. ‘Guys and Dolls’ is part of every English musical theater repertory company. And ‘West Side Story’ is marvelous.

“The musical theater must not be allowed to die out here. It would be sad not to build on what you have.”

Certainly you don’t have to journey to the Ahmanson in Los Angeles where “Phantom of the Opera” is playing to witness Webber’s impact on San Diego audiences. The San Diego Playgoers will present the national tours of Webber’s “Cats” in September (for the third time!) and “Starlight Express” in December at the Civic Theatre, while the Lamb’s Players Theatre presents its own production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in October.

Those who know Bob Mack, a graduate of United States International University’s theater program, should not be saddened to find him less than what he once was on the stage of the Theatre in Old Town, where he plays Don Quixote’s faithful squire, Sancho Panza, in “Man of La Mancha” through June 18.

He’s less only in the weight department. He went from 427 to 209 pounds on a 520-calorie supplemented fast diet, supervised by the Institute for Health Maintenance in Hillcrest. He plans to stick to the fast, which he began Sept. 17, until he reaches his goal of 180 pounds. Mack’s weight loss is bad news for the wardrobe department--it has to keep adding padding to his costume to make sure it stays on while the pounds fly off. The good news is that his body may have shrunk, but his voice is, if anything, bigger than ever.

PROGRAM NOTES: Christine Baranski may not have gotten a nod from the San Diego Critics Circle when she opened in the premiere of Neil Simon’s “Rumors” at the Old Globe Theatre last year. Still, she can console herself with a Tony award for best actress for her work in that same play--her second such win. . . . More award winners: Obies for Off-Broadway work went to Nancy Marchand of “The Cocktail Hour,” another Globe premiere (negotiations for a tour are in the works, according to Globe managing director Thomas Hall) and San Diegans Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney of “The Kathy & Mo Show.” . . . “Suds,” San Diego’s home-grown musical that played Off-Broadway last year, is reopening in Phoenix with a new cast. Producer Bryan Scott is still trying to negotiate a national tour. . . . Local actor and restaurateur Leon Singer will take a seven-week break from his El Tecolote restaurant Monday to play the part of a key witness in the movie “Show of Force.” The movie tells the true story of two boys who favored independence for Puerto Rico and were allegedly entrapped and killed by U. S. government agents in 1978. The movie reunites Singer with Robert Duvall, with whom he acted in “Lonesome Dove,” and also stars Amy Irving, Lou Diamond Phillips and Erik Estrada. . . . Playwright Christopher Durang has been frank about the way his art imitated his life in “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” now playing at the San Diego Repertory Theatre. Now his life will imitate his art when he plays the role he fashioned after himself--Matt--in the production of “Bette and Boo” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center Aug. 11-Sept. 17. He first played the part of Matt when the play debuted in New York.