THEATER REVIEW : Dale Kristien Enriches ‘Sound of Music’

The hills are alive with the sound of Dale Kristien, the only sound reason to see the revival of “The Sound of Music” playing through Sunday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The lady who so gracefully performed Christine Daae for five years and three phantoms in “The Phantom of the Opera” at the Ahmanson Theatre is first class. But almost everything else about this locally assembled Theatre League production of “The Sound of Music” is cut-rate.

The 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical is still (and understandably) a great favorite with families, as Thursday’s ample audience demonstrated. Based on the life of the Trapp Family Singers, it is full of unavoidably familiar, confectionary ballads.

This is one show where you hum the songs as you enter the theater. You know them all: the delicious “Maria,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “My Favorite Things,” “You Are Sixteen (Going on Seventeen),” “Something Good” and the title piece, to name a handful. And the only reason to revive it, considering its huge success over the years, should be to give it the artistic opulence it demands.

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The producers have it in Kristien, whose vocal richness and simplicity of performance set the right tone for the impulsive Maria (she even manages to deliver a remarkably sugar-free version of “My Favorite Things”). They have it also in Dale Franzen’s equally warm and vocally accomplished Mother Abbess. And in Kelly Britt’s Frau Schmidt--a marginal role for Britt’s big talent.

But the often halting, by-the-numbers edition that surrounds them, staged by Harvey Medlinsky, reflects the tired finery the production comes in: painted flats and plastic hilltops, borrowed from San Bernardino Civic Light Opera.

Instead of working against them, this emphasizes the cloying picture-postcard aspects of this musical, which has difficulties enough just marshaling seven youngsters into carefully choreographed and coordinated numbers.

The “children” acquit themselves well enough, especially Leanna Polk as 16-year-old Liesl, but they do not escape the circus-dog aspects of some of their numbers--in particular the first rendition of “So Long, Farewell.” And only the softening choreography of Peggy Hickey rescues a mechanical “You Are Sixteen” duet from Mark McBride’s needlessly wooden Rolf Gruber.

Cold and glamorous Frau Schraeder and shifty concert promoter Max Detweiler were never written as more than stereotypical stick figures, and they get no memorable amplification here from their interpreters, Jana Robbins and Barry Dennen, respectively.

As for Kevin Dobson, familiar to viewers of TV’s “Knots Landing,” he is that painful contradiction as Capt. Von Trapp: A capable actor cast in a role that makes the wrong set of demands. Dobson is not a singer and yet is called on to sing; the tender “Edelweiss” is his number, and he is not a happy camper in it. For this reason perhaps, he remains stiff and uneasy in the role, long after it has required him to thaw out, at least enough to show that he can love.

Lloyd Cooper’s musical direction is lively, but, given the advances in theatrical sound and light, Mark Cowburn’s thunder and Kim Killingsworth’s lightning should be a lot more realistic than they are.

It’s that kind of corner cutting that spoils the fun, making this “Sound of Music” a shaky start for the new Broadway at the Pasadena Civic series. At a top ticket of $47, the public deserves better. So, for that matter, does Kristien.

* “The Sound of Music,” Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena. Today, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $23.50-$47. (818) 449-7360. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.