‘She Loves Me’--Just Not Enough : Laguna Playhouse production isn’t able to hide the weaknesses built into the musical.

Looked at with the generosity of the holiday spirit, “She Loves Me” seems ideal as a Christmas entertainment for a modern generation. It’s a musical about love and hope and goodness . . . and the personal want ads (a real contemporary connection in times when romance is supposedly so hard to find), all cast against a backdrop of Yuletide cheer.

Why, then, isn’t the Laguna Playhouse’s revival more satisfying? The general stiffness of this Mark Stevens-directed production can’t take all the blame. “She Loves Me” has its own problems.

The Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) and Joe Masteroff (book) collaboration tries blithely to evoke the same bittersweet sentimentality of its inspiration, Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 movie “The Shop Around the Corner.” Masteroff’s book pretty much duplicates the original plot about two cosmetics clerks, Georg (John Bisom) and Amalia (Deborah Solomon), who seem to hate each other but fall in love anyway as anonymous pen pals in Europe during the ‘30s.

The first act of “She Loves Me,” though, tends to plod, as everything is set up in deliberate and cumbersome ways. No momentum builds, and the coming romantic quandary lacks the necessary twang to keep us involved. All those unexceptional songs don’t help matters. This is not a score that will make anyone forget “Fiddler on the Roof,” which Bock and Harnick also wrote.

To be sure, everything picks up somewhat and is more interestingly organized, in the second act as big and little subplots are resolved. The tunes, although hardly memorable, also seem to have a bit extra zip, especially the signature “She Loves Me.”

As for the Laguna production, it did have fits of liveliness on opening night last week--for one, the Cafe Imperiale number near the end of the Act I was a raucous crowd-pleaser--but overall the show lacked the kind of vitality and assurance that may have kept the musical’s weaknesses from appearing obvious.

Director Stevens also did a curious thing with Georg, having Bisom play him not as the shy, graying man who’s quest for love is in great part linked to an awareness of his own insecurities, but as just another nice, youngish guy. Bisom’s Georg looks and acts so fresh that it doesn’t make sense when Amalia angrily characterizes him as someone who has let life pass on by.

Both Bison and Solomon offered competent but hardly invigorating performances. They were presentable and sang well enough, but there wasn’t a bond, a sense of submerged passion for each other just waiting to find a way out. If they don’t seem to be moved, either by their anger or their love, why should we care?

The fizz in this “She Loves Me” came from the supporting characters, especially Joe Lauderdale and John Huntington. The impish Lauderdale was like a blond Pee-wee Herman, all nerves and impulses, as Arpad, the shop’s delivery boy. As Sipos, John Huntington almost went too far in describing an Old World sensibility, but at least he he strived for vividness.

On the technical side, Gary May’s sets are passable but not as well-crafted as those from recent Laguna Playhouse productions (“Big River” comes to mind). Bary Odom’s costumes, though, are noteworthy. Odom, a former designer for the Royal Shakespeare Company, keeps the period intact with an eye toward realism but adds colorful touches of theatricality.

‘She Loves Me’

A Laguna Playhouse production of the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joe Masteroff musical. Directed by Mark Stevens. With Marci Anne, John Bisom, Jeff Coulter, Tim Dey, Randall Dodge, John Huntington, Joe Lauderdale, Gordon Marhoefer, April Morgan, Terri Miller Schmidt, Deborah Solomon, Laura Wells, Christopher Wuebben, Wendy Abas, Marge Anderson, Will Dalley, Joyce Eriksen, Stuart Eriksen, Kate Halvorsen, James Harris, Glenn Meek, Michele Moore, Roger Shank, Chris Taylor and Ruff Yeager. Sets by Gary May. Lighting by R. Timothy Osborn. Costumes by Bary Odom. Musical direction by Bill Doyle. Sound by David Edwards. Plays Tuesdays through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. through Dec. 14 at the Moulton Theatre. Tickets: $14 to $22. (714) 494-8021 or (714) 497-9244.