THEATER REVIEWS / ‘CABARET’ : Sunny Berlin : The Music Theater of Ventura presents a lighter view of the European city’s night life in its production of the 1966 musical.

Paul Iannaccone, executive producer of the Music Theater of Ventura, put it best. “ ‘Cabaret’ is nothing like ‘South Pacific,’ ” he noted dryly in an introduction to Friday night’s performance.

He is right on two counts. “Cabaret” holds up better in 1991 than does the Rodgers and Hammerstein warhorse, and the Music Theater’s current production of the laughing-through-the-apocalypse musical is a great improvement over its recent drowsy rendition of the romance between nurse Nellie Forbush and planter Emile de Becque.

Still, this “Cabaret” presents a somewhat different view of the musical, which debuted in 1966, than fans might be used to: It’s a sunny “Cabaret,” one that you might expect to see at Knott’s Berry Farm.

American novelist Clifford Bradshaw, expatriate British singer Sally Bowles and most of the rest of the main characters are too busy having fun in Weimar-era Berlin to notice that darker political forces are taking over.

The Nazis remain in the back half of the play, where the show’s author, Joe Masteroff, put them. In that respect, the second act is much more serious than the first, not to mention shorter.

Where director Mark Madama and his talented cast lighten things up is their vision of Berlin night life: this (mostly sexual) decadence isn’t played as particularly unsettling. Even the drag shows look more like a harmless tribute to “La Cage aux Folles” than a peek into the steamy, exotic Berlin underbelly.

Those who have seen “Cabaret” before will notice that this production is based on the 1987 Broadway revival, which incorporates one song, “Maybe This Time,” written as a showpiece for Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film version, drops another of the Broadway original’s musical numbers and involves other minor tinkering.

Frank Stancati, who lit up “South Pacific” as Luther Billis, plays the pivotal role of master of ceremonies in the Kit Kat Klub. He does it nicely, though is a bit less smarmy than he might have been.

Ann Morrison and Ned Coulter make a reasonably convincing Sally and Clifford, and Patricia Connolly and S. Mark Jordan work hard to recreate the work of Lotte Lenya and Tony Award winner Jack Gilford in the original.

Paul Formanek is icily charming as smuggler Ernst Ludwig, and choreographer Linda Goodrich, pulling double duty, practically steals every scene she appears in as hooker Francine Kost.

Much of the fun is in the details: various acts that play the Kit Kat Klub (including a Vegas-style production number, “The Money Song,” with women in huge hats playing tribute to various nations); a gay man, played by Kevin-Anthony, who’s trying to chat up Clifford, and a drag chorus line singing “If You Could See Her.”

One of the set pieces is too well played: When the Emcee reprises “If You Could See Her” with a comic partner, the grimly ironic punch line was totally lost among the audience’s laughter and applause.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“Cabaret” concludes this weekend at the Oxnard Civic Auditorium, 800 Hobson Way (at 9th Street) in Oxnard. Performances are at 8 p.m. tonight through Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday, with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2. Ticket prices range from $11.50 to $27.50, with discounts available for groups, students, seniors and active military. To charge tickets or for further information, call 800-366-6064.