STAGE REVIEW : A Vital, Dynamic ‘Closer’

Some contemporary musical revues are so good, you just wish their creators could get the financing to do more book musicals.

But that isn’t the case with “Closer Than Ever” at the Pasadena Playhouse. It’s better than that.

It’s packed with so many richly sketched characters and dramatic situations that it would be foolish to spend time regretting that it isn’t a book musical. With all due respect to the librettists of the world, here is a musical that legitimately raises the question: Who needs a book?

In fact, the “Closer Than Ever” team of composer David Shire and lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. had a moderate success with one book musical, “Baby.” But that show’s book was its weakest ingredient. “Patterns,” a song from “Baby,” is more at home in “Closer Than Ever” than it was in its original context.

Not that “Closer Than Ever” is completely shapeless. The theme that keeps recurring is about the doors that people face in life: how they can open or close at the strangest moments, how important it is to keep looking for those openings. Fans of Gail Sheehy’s “Passages” should eat this stuff up.

These songs about the doors have their moments, but they’re merely this show’s frame. It’s the specific characters who move through those doors that make “Closer Than Ever” so vital and dynamic.

This isn’t a show about the hopeless, about those who discern no doors on their personal horizons. Although the above-mentioned “Patterns” addresses the feelings of a woman who feels trapped, generally the characters in “Closer Than Ever” are on the move, one way or another.

They’re not very old, but neither are they very young; specific ages that are mentioned are 39, 44, 49. Most of these people are fairly well off; one man sings of how he seems to be “strangling in plenty, but whining for more.”

In another number, “The March of Time,” a man brags about how the ‘80s made him rich. But then, just like everyone else, he gets swept up in “the march of time,” that inexorable force that makes even millionaires aware of their mortality. This is a terrific quartet, moving effortlessly from sharp satire to sudden tragedy, then into a synthesis of the two, ingeniously choreographed.

Solos distinguish the first act of “Closer Than Ever.” Near the top of the show, matched solos about a woman (Sally Mayes) and a man (Jason Workman) who get the brushoff from their respective lovers make an interesting contrast--the woman’s tough, while the man’s a helpless romantic.

But surely the solo of the week is the next number, “The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster and the Mole,” in which a zoologist (limpid-voiced Meg Bussert) champions single motherhood among other species and applies it to her own situation. If Dan Quayle found last week’s “Murphy Brown” objectionable, wait until he gets an earful of this.

Another eyebrow-raiser might be the sexy “Miss Byrd” (husky-voiced Mayes) who, in describing her unorthodox lunch breaks, turns her swivel desk chair into an erogenous zone.

On the other hand, “One of the Good Guys” uses one of Shire’s most poignant and probing melodies to defend sexual self-restraint. Though there’s a touch of smugness in Maltby’s very last phrase, it’s sung masterfully by Workman, despite the fact that he looks too young for it. Conservatives might also applaud “Life Story,” a feminist’s sad tale, though it’s chronologically confused, with a dramatic payoff that isn’t well justified.

A funny trio about a fraying friendship opens Act II, followed by a series of exceptional duets. One of these, “There,” is staged differently than it was at a smaller theater in Long Beach in January. Maltby assigns the male role, who’s never “there” for his lover, to actor Gary Beach instead of pianist Gerald Sternbach. It’s much better this way, for the pianist in this show can’t help but be “there.”

A men’s trio about fatherhood also works better here, and Maltby’s staging of the final women’s duet makes it clearer that the characters are mother and daughter instead of buddies.

But the strongest advantage of this production is the colorful costume design by Claudia Stephens. Even in the most generic numbers, the colors help the actors create individual characters, as opposed to the uniform look of the costumes in Long Beach. And Philipp Jung’s chameleonic backdrop, beautifully lit by Joshua Starbuck, adds a previously missing dimension.

This cast also has a slight edge in the presence of Beach, whose inspired comedy brightens up his aggravation solo, “I’ll Get Up Tomorrow Morning,” and the group’s trenchant dissection of fitness fanatics, “There’s Nothing Like It.”

Record store owners should prepare for a sudden demand for the “Closer Than Ever” recording (featuring Mayes, among others). A lot of theatergoers are going to want it, though on Sunday it wasn’t in stock even at the Playhouse gift shop.

* “Closer Than Ever,” Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends June 28. $31.50. (818) 356-PLAY. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes. CAST: Gary Beach, Meg Bussert, Sally Mayes, Jason Workman

Director Richard Maltby Jr. Lyrics Maltby. Music David Shire. Conceived and co-directed by Steven Scott Smith. Musical director Gerald Sternbach. Bassist Robert D. Renino. Additional vocal arrangements Patrick Scott Brady. Musical staging Marcia Milgrom Dodge, re-created by Anita Flanagan. Set Philipp Jung. Lights Joshua Starbuck. Costumes Claudia Stephens. Sound Jon Gottlieb. Production stage manager Tami Toon. Stage manager David S. Franklin.