Dance Review : A Toothless Bite From the Big Apple : Although Heavy on Nostalgia and Opulence, ‘Radio City’ Ends Up Lightweight

When you hear a bunch of chorus guys singing, “There are no girls like showgirls,” you know you’re not on the cutting edge of societal evolution. But cutting edge is not what “The Great Radio City Music Hall Spectacular,” with Susan Anton and the Rockettes--which opened Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center (through Sunday)--is concerned with.

When it’s not touting the Radio City Music Hall in New York dubiously as “a national treasure,” the show is about nostalgia, pretty women (lots of pretty women), opulent, bizarre, revealing costumes, precision dancing and would-be scenic spectaculars.

It moves to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles for a six-day run, starting Tuesday. At least the Orange County center had the honesty to put the event on its Broadway series. James A. Doolittle, who is presenting it in Los Angeles, pairs it in ads with the Joffrey Ballet and calls both “dance events of distinction.” That’s a stretch.

The surprising thing about the show was how clunky and bite-sized the choreography--credited to Joe Layton--actually was and how indifferently it was danced, particularly by the secondary acts. Layton’s movement ideas came mostly in simple two-bar phrases, yet the dancers seemed to need clear preparation time to do them, and they rarely carried through any real kinetic impulse.

The result was a start-and-stop quality to the dancing, and that, plus the recurring drive to get the 21 dancers lined up to do synchronized eye-level kicks--a feat that always drew applause--gave some idea of what American dance pioneers such as Martha Graham must have been up against as they labored to make dance a serious art.

Specialty acts included Michael Kessler and Melinda Jackson as stunt- and trick-driven soloists in the kitschy “Kingdom Under the Sea” and the athletic “Rhapsody in Blue” scenes. Modest homages to Astaire-Rogers or Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor looked embarrassingly inept. The “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” probably showed the troupe in its most appealing precision dancing, however.

Anton, a singing actress of some TV and Broadway reputation, served as emcee, flashing a million-dollar smile, offering throaty vocalism and genial patter and appearing over the course of the evening in five different costumes.

Magician Jeff McBride provided welcome changes in pace with effective coin tricks, some startling quick changes involving masks behind masks behind masks . . . and an overwrought lighting trick dependent more on hand-held mirrors and a sympathetic designer than on persuasive magic.

Joe Klein conducted a small orchestra made up of New York City and Southern California musicians. The orchestra was miked, as were the singers, helping to give a feeling of disconnect to the whole proceedings.

* “The Great Radio City Music Hall Spectacular,” with Susan Anton and the Rockettes, will continue today and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $19-$45. (714) 556-2787. The show will repeat Tuesday through June 25 at 8 p.m., and also at 2:30 p.m. on June 23, 25 and 26 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. $15-$50. (213) 480-3232 (Ticketmaster).