THEATER <i> /</i> PAT H. BROESKE : ‘St. Louis’ Rekindles a Love of Fair From ’44

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the St. Louis World’s Fair, boasted some 1,000 buildings--many of them magnificently ornamental--on more than 1,040 lushly landscaped acres. There were big-name guests the likes of Will Rogers and John Philip Sousa (and band, natch), and a spate of legendary “firsts,” such as the introduction of the ice cream cone and--most dazzling of all--the very first use of electric lights outdoors. A record 20 million people turned out to ooh and aah .

More than eight decades later, the fair’s lights are still twinkling. The U.S. touring production of “Meet Me in St. Louis”--adapted from the 1944 MGM movie musical--opens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Performances continue through Sunday.

The touring production, starring Debby Boone (Pat’s “You Light Up My Life” daughter) as Esther Smith--the role made famous on the screen by Judy Garland--arrives by way of a stopover in, appropriately, St. Louis.

“I hear the critics there didn’t like us, but we were a huge hit with the public. That’s been pretty much the story with this play,” admitted songwriter Hugh Martin.

Back in the early ‘40s, following an apprenticeship on Broadway, Martin and his songwriting partner Ralph Blane came to Hollywood to collaborate on the score for “Meet Me in St. Louis,” which was adapted from the autobiographical short stories of Sally Benson. “It was the project that changed my life,” declared Martin, who said he and Blane jumped at the chance to return to it when they were asked to write additional songs for the 1989 Broadway version.

Martin, now 76, spoke by phone from his home in Encinitas (“where I feel terribly cut off from the rest of the world”), about the genesis of both movie and play, and the enduring appeal of the simple story of the Smith family in turn-of-the-century St. Louis.

“I think everyone wants to be a member of a loving family like the Smiths,” said Martin. “If you were lucky enough to come from a family like theirs, you can relate to them. If you come from a dysfunctional family, then the Smiths are a substitute family.”

Lamenting that “there aren’t very many family-oriented shows on Broadway anymore,” Martin added: “This is one of those shows that people are sorry they don’t do more of. There’s no blasphemy or violence. You don’t have to worry about some unsuitable sexual situation. It’s clean--and it’s melodic.”

Melodic, indeed. The Martin-Blane score provided Garland with three of her standards, “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song” and the holiday perennial “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” not to mention “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

The movie itself has been hailed as initiating the Golden Age of Hollywood movie musicals. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli (who would later marry his star) as a series of romanticized vignettes. Garland sang “The Boy Next Door” after anxiously looking over at her handsome new neighbor (Tom Drake). When she cuddled “little sister” Margaret O’Brien--playing Tootie Smith--and sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” it was to soothe her fears over the family’s impending move to foreboding New York City.

“Meet Me in St. Louis” charmed the critics (“4 stars . . . sheer, unadulterated entertainment”--wrote Kate Cameron in the New York Daily News) and wowed wartime audiences, becoming the studio’s top-grossing film since “Gone With the Wind.” It also resulted in a stampede to make nostalgic musicals. (20th Century-Fox even cribbed the idea of a trip to the fair, with “Centennial Summer” (1946), about the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.)

“Everything came together just right on that film. Finally ,” said Martin, recalling that Garland initially balked at doing “Meet Me in St. Louis” because, at 21, she thought she was too grown-up to play the 17-year-old Esther. She also worried about being upstaged by Hollywood’s hottest pint-sized star, 6-year-old O’Brien, Martin said.

As for the coming together of the Broadway adaptation: It followed in the dancing steps of Broadway shows such as “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “Singin’ in the Rain”--also based on popular MGM musicals--but is considered more faithful to its source than those productions.

In fact, said Martin, the stage version basically is the film. The only major screen scene that’s been “snipped” involves Tootie’s scary adventures on Halloween night. “It was just so cinematic; it never really adapted,” he explained.

As for the songs that have been added, they include the first act’s “You’ll Hear a Bell,” in which Esther’s mother tells her how she’ll know when she’s in love.

There have been some changes from Broadway to touring company, due to the logistics of taking a show on the road.

The lavish production design that graced New York’s Gershwin Theater during the show’s seven-month run has been scaled down--and simplified. Gone are the skating pond and the fountains. A spectacular trolley that actually twirled around on stage has been replaced by a more sensible model. “It’s really a blessing in disguise,” said Martin, stressing that the changes have resulted in more intimacy. “The story has been brought back to the family home, where it really should be.”

Martin knows better than most the advantage of knowing when to make a change.

Consider: He and Blane wrote four versions of “The Trolley Song” before coming up with their famed entry (which begins, “Clang, clang, clang went the trolley . . .”). They were also asked to rewrite “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” because Garland thought audiences would be upset if she sang it, as originally written, to Margaret O’Brien.

The original version began with the less-than-uplifting lines:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

It may be your last,

Next year we may all

Be living in the past.

“I had the arrogance of youth,” Martin recalled. “I said, ‘We won’t touch a word of it.’ ”

Of course, Martin and Blane relented, resulting in one of the most heartfelt of Christmas songs.

“Meet Me in St. Louis” opens tonight and continues through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Curtain is at 8 p.m. nightly, with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets: $19 to $42. Information: (714) 556-2787.