THEATER : That’s Entertainment? No, It’s ‘Broadway Celebration’ : The show presented at the Irvine Barclay Theatre trivializes what it pretends to pay tribute to, failing to put the tunes in theatrical context.

The decline of the Broadway musical in cultural relevance--”Miss Saigon,” Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Weber notwithstanding--would seem to be linked to the rise of rock ‘n’ roll as the pop music of choice for the millions of young people who have really lousy, lowbrow taste.

That is a commonly held opinion in theater circles, the conventional wisdom, in fact, if not the whole truth. It certainly is the opinion of the four principals in “A Broadway Celebration”--Susan Watson, George Ball, Lainie Nelson and Dan Gettinger--whose touring revue appeared Friday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

They didn’t take long to make that clear when they came out on stage--the women in black-sequined dresses and the men in black tuxedos--looking as if they were either going to resurrect an era that once belonged to Ed Sullivan’s TV show or entertain the wedding guests in a ballroom at the Beverly Wilshire.

Their very first number, “Wanna Sing a Showtune,” underscored the point. “Please don’t bend my ear with punk/it’s junk,” they sang. “You can keep those rock songs/those schlock songs.”

Yet the entire revue of show tunes that followed--almost all of them arranged for medleys like so much chopped liver--was symptomatic of the Broadway musical’s decline as a cultural force. The quartet’s calculated appeal to nostalgia, both middle-brow and middle-aged, merely reinforced the obvious.

What this revue might have done (that is, illustrate the art of the theater song) is precisely what it rarely did.

Instead of presenting their three dozen numbers with at least a minimum of theatrical context--a touch of costuming or a hint of character acting--the four singers performed with hand-held mikes in a dull concert style that was totally antithetical to the dramatic requirements of the material.

The two exceptions were Watson’s briefly entertaining quick-change into Eliza in a solo sketch from “My Fair Lady” and a melodramatic group medley from “Phantom of the Opera” featuring Ball in mask, cape and fedora.

Meanwhile, the staging was repetitive (lots of prancing back and forth to the wings, sitting on stools, gathering at the grand piano). And there was virtually no variation to the singing, regardless of the unmistakable variations in the songs. All were delivered at the same volume--forte--and with the same inevitable mugging. It made no difference whether we were hearing “Wilkommen” from “Cabaret” or “Send in the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music.”

This is not to say “A Broadway Celebration” hasn’t found its audience. It did in Irvine, as it has elsewhere around the country. The revue drew 573 people to the 750-seat Barclay, among the larger crowds since the theater opened in September.

Herbert Fox, senior vice president of Columbia Artists Management, who is managing the tour, says the revue “is one of the biggest attractions we’ve ever had. The same taste that brings people to the Shubert or the Ahmanson in Los Angeles brings them to this show wherever it plays.”

We won’t argue the distinction. Suffice to say that, according to Fox, “A Broadway Celebration” toured for 12 weeks on its first road trip in 1989, playing one-night stands in such California towns as Chico, Red Bluff and Longview as well as Midwestern towns from Liberal, Kan., to Sioux Falls, S.D., to Hopkinsville, Ky.

This tour, the fourth, started in Malibu over New Year’s and will end in Centralia, Ill., in May. Demand is so great, Fox claims, that a second troupe is being readied for next year, so as to keep two separate tours going at the same time. Apparently no chestnuts are too old or too relentlessly sung for some audiences.

Broadway musicals used to be a relevant popular art capable not only of great versatility but of enormous emotional potency and impact--unlike secondhand revues that trivialize them.

And, lest we forget, the best efforts had social significance as well, incorporating everything from folk opera (“Porgy and Bess”) to morality tale (“Carousel”), from comic love story (“Guys and Dolls”) to Shakespearean tragedy (“West Side Story”), from ethnic history (“Fiddler on the Roof”) to mystery thriller (“Sweeney Todd”).

If it is too much to hope for new masterworks of the Broadway musical tradition at this late date, maybe the next revue that comes around will spare us the sorry spectacle of performers who stop the show--as Ball did--to flog a CD of it from the stage.

Talk about schlock.

‘A BROADWAY CELEBRATION’

A presentation of UC Irvine Arts and Lectures. Staged and directed by Ted Sprague. With Susan Watson, Lainie Nelson, George Ball and Dan Gettinger.