A Dark ‘Sound of Music’? Check. : James Hammerstein is taking some of the sugarcoating off his father’s musical--’I wanted to downgrade the sentimental side.’

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s final musical may not be known for its underbelly, but there’s more to “The Sound of Music” than a singing governess and her brood. At least that’s how director James Hammerstein sees it.

The son of the late lyricist believes the operetta based on the true story of the Von Trapp family singers is a tricky piece of work. “It’s packed with emotional ammunition--nuns, music, Nazis--and they actually all happened,” says Hammerstein, speaking by phone from New York. “The problem is not to appear to manipulate.”

That’s why the younger Hammerstein has tried to take a fresh approach to the popular standard that first bowed in 1959, with Mary Martin as Maria, and was made into a multiple Oscar-winning 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews. “I’m just trying to tell the story as honestly as I can and have the children bright, not cute,” he says. “I wanted to downgrade the sentimental side. I darken it.”

Hammerstein’s touring production of “The Sound of Music,” featuring Marie Osmond as Maria and Laurence Guittard as Capt. Von Trapp, arrives at the Pantages Theatre on Tuesday for a two-week run. It is presented by the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera.

The staging is a scaled-down adaptation of a production created five years ago for the New York City Opera that featured Debbie Boone in the lead role now played by Osmond. It’s been on the road for nine months with the current cast, and has stopped in 35 cities across the United States so far.

There is a distinctly shady side to this tale of the convent girl who’s sent to be a governess to a widower and his seven children. While none of Hitler’s minions ever actually appear onstage, their presence is keenly felt as Maria and the family flee the Nazi invasion of Austria.

But Hammerstein, who is a veteran director who’s frequently been associated with productions of his famous father’s works, did not arrive at his interpretation overnight. “I didn’t like it when I saw it the first time (when it first played Broadway),” he says, referring to the original 43-month New York run. “It seemed to me too sugarcoated, too full of cute children. I found it dull, too. They avoided any kind of sexual attraction.”

Hammerstein never had a chance to discuss his opinion of the original staging with his father, who died just nine months after “The Sound of Music” opened. But he’s confident that the senior Hammerstein would have approved of the direction in which he’s now taking the musical.

“Politically, there’s no doubt he would have approved,” says the director. “He founded the Anti-Nazi League in California and he probably thought of (making it less sentimental) himself before me. And certainly if he didn’t agree with it then, he would now. I always have the feeling that I knew my father better than anybody except my brother.”

Hammerstein has not opted for an abstract style a la London and Broadway’s currently popular revival of “Carousel.” “This is representative, not an abstract interpretation,” says the director, who has also staged London productions of “Oklahoma!,” Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” and George Abbott’s “Damn Yankees,” and spent nine years as a director in residence at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Festival. “I don’t think ‘The Sound of Music’ goes well into an abstract interpretation like ‘Carousel’ does. It’s too early for that.”

What matters, says Hammerstein, is to keep the menace palpable. “The thing to do is to make people believe that this really happened,” he says. “If you were to abstract it, then it would become a fairy story.

“These people embraced the Nazis for the most part. I can’t forget this. I wish I could remind people a bit.”

Specifically, Hammerstein relies on character to reveal the historical moment. “We’ve done something here that is not done often: I tried to hit the dark side of the family friend Max, the sophisticate among them and the one who rescues them from the Nazis,” he says. “When somebody professes no political interest and suddenly has morality after all, that’s worth investigating. Max is not just the guy who makes the jokes.”

Y et the director knows he’s got his work cut out for him, especially with younger theatergoers who may be hearing “The Sound of Music” for the first time. “I can sense a difference between those who remember (World War II and the Nazis) and those who don’t,” he says. “People who are young recognize the symbols, whereas those of us who are older get a kind of ‘Oh, god.’ Just the idea has that kind of power.

“We’ve all changed as an audience. I’ve changed. Thirty-five years is a long time. You just bring a different sensibility to it.”

Of course, even with its dark aspect brought out, “The Sound of Music” still has a hefty dose of optimism. “No matter how dark you make it, it’s still a very uplifting story,” says Hammerstein. “We’ve taken the time and gone as deep as we can, but I don’t think you’ll ever make this a turgid, deep psychological drama.”*

Vital Stats

“The Sound of Music”

Address

Pantages Theatre

6233 Hollywood Blvd.

Hollywood

Price: $50-$20

Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Through Aug. 21.

Phone: (213) 365-3500.