O.C. STAGE REVIEW : Cute Alone Can’t Carry Center’s ‘She Loves Me’

Meet cute. The idea has served romantic comedy for decades. The more clever the meeting the better. Think of Fred Astaire’s shipboard encounter with Ginger Rogers in “The Gay Divorcee.” Cute. Think of Professor Higgins’ sidewalk confrontation with Eliza in “My Fair Lady.” Cuter.

In “She Loves Me,” through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the “meet-cute” is devilish in its cleverness and lasts the length of the entire show. Two lonely hearts, who clerk in an Old World cosmetics shop and can’t bear each other on sight, have fallen in love through the mail as anonymous pen pals.

The idea worked in Ernst Lubitsch’s “The Shop Around the Corner,” the 1940 movie based on Miklos Laszlo’s 1936 hit play, “Parfumerie,” which also inspired this 1963 musical collaboration by Broadway veterans Joe Masteroff (libretto), Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics).

So why doesn’t it work here?

For starters, “She Loves Me” has virtually no forward motion in the song-crammed first act, which dawdles for nearly 1 1/2 hours with such musical curiosities as “Sounds While Shopping,” “No More Candy,” “Good-bye Georg” and a dozen other largely forgettable tunes. By intermission the audience needs a shot of No Doze.

What’s more, this nicely costumed, scenically well-appointed revival doesn’t get much help from a sluggish performance. You know a show is in deep trouble when the supporting players turn out to be livelier, crisper and more watchable than the stars.

Pam Dawber offers a passable but never more than routine portrayal of the prim Miss Balash, whose brash salesmanship gets her a job at the shop. It would have been nice had she dazzled, since she seems capable of it as a singer and actress. But on Tuesday, opening night, she was still clearing her throat in both departments.

As for Joel Higgins, he was so phlegmatic you could have set off a bomb on stage and counted to three before he realized it. His by-the-numbers performance drained all possible color from the role of timid Georg Nowack, the graying assistant shop manager whose “Dear Friend” letters would have to be more passionate than Higgins’ personality to sweep even a lovelorn shop girl off her feet.

In the second act, after droves of theatergoers have defected, “She Loves Me” surprises us: It seems almost a different show, as though the Bock-Harnick team recognized that they were no competition for Stephen Sondheim and decided to clear the air with such traditional show-biz set pieces as “Try Me,” the title song “She Loves Me” and “Grand Knowing You.”

Among a cast of television transplants, Gary Sandy turns in the show’s best effort with a first-class Broadway performance as Kodaly, the narcissistic womanizer. He is energetic, graceful and fresh. Jenny O’Hara, who provides comic relief as the exploited Miss Ritter, is amusing as long as she doesn’t have to sing.

Meanwhile, stage veteran Theodore Bikel gives a stock performance in the stock role of Mr. Maraczek, the proprietor who is cuckolded by his wife. Jack Fletcher, who has one of the evening’s cleverest songs (“Perspective”), mugs like a sturdy vaudevillian as Sipos the shop clerk. Ditto for Nick Ullett as the headwaiter. Jeb Brown plays the winsome role of Arpad the delivery boy with sufficient style. And Laura Waterbury, Ann Winkowski and Laura Soltis sing well as a featured chorus of shop customers.

‘SHE LOVES ME’

A revival of the 1963 musical at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Presented by the Center, Pace Theatrical Group and GFI Productions. Book by Joe Masteroff. Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Based on “Parfumerie,” the play by Miklos Laszlo. Direction and musical staging by Paul Blake. Musical director Robert Webb. Scenery by Deborah Raymond and Dorian Vernacchio. Costumes by Robert Fletcher. Lighting by Martin Aronstein. With Pam Dawber, Joel Higgins, Theodore Bikel, Jenny O’Hara, Gary Sandy, Jack Fletcher, Jeb Brown. Performances continue through Sunday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. At the Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $19 to $40. (714) 740-2000 or (213) 480-3232 to charge by phone; (714) 556-2787 for information.