THEATER REVIEW : Comic Marriage as Holy Deadlock in ‘I Do!’

When Tom Jones’ and Harvey Schmidt’s “I Do! I Do!” first appeared in the mid-1960s, there were complaints that the Broadway musical was just about dead--or at least devoid of originality. Proof?

Well . . . “I Do! I Do!,” which is basically Jan de Hartog’s play “The Fourposter,” with inserted songs.

It’s now nearly 30 years later, and the Broadway musical is still just about dead, only now the genre consists of revivals such as “Showboat” and revues such as “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.” Next to these, “I Do! I Do!”--even in a sweet Fullerton Civic Light Opera staging by Gary Davis at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center amphitheater--looks downright daring.

Of course, as the just closed “Porgy and Bess” in Costa Mesa reminded, they’ve been making musicals of plays forever. And because “The Fourposter” is becoming at best a faint memory, Jones’ and Schmidt’s adaptation at least feels original.

At the same time, it isn’t nearly the original that their “Fantasticks” is, and there’s something irritatingly shallow at this show’s core, the sense of a strong promise unfulfilled. As “I Do! I Do” trots along in its revival pasture, it amounts largely to a vehicle for musical comedians with chops.

Davis’ musical comedians, Alan Freeman and Lisa Robinson, absolutely have chops. As long-loving, long-suffering Michael and Agnes (whose marriage is tracked from 1880 to 1928), Freeman and Robinson fulfill their stage vows as an ideally complementary pair. He is the character actor, as concerned with subtext as with singing. She is the singer, who also acts very well. The different emphases effectively balance the musical’s seesaw of wills and desires.

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It isn’t as if these two have a lot to build on, beyond the songs. For the irony of “I Do! I Do!” is that despite its origins as a play, Jones’ book feels almost thin and juvenile, as if we were seeing Michael and Agnes through their unseen children’s eyes. From wedding night on, we see her prudery (“I haven’t seen a man unclothed!”), his large but perhaps deserved pride at being a good-selling author, her chiding him for being too hard on their son (his retort is “Oedipus!”) and so on.

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But we never, ever take seriously the threats that they may leave each other--Michael for another woman, Agnes over being bored after all the kids are gone. This is the pencil outline of a married couple without the figures filled in, and like cartoon characters, Michael and Agnes crash, bounce back up and start running again.

Any sense, then, of recognition and emotional resonance is in the actors’ hands. Their challenge is pretty steep, not only to fill in the thin book but to give flight to Schmidt’s mostly same-sounding songs. Beyond the bouncy “I Love My Wife” or the moody “My Cup Runneth Over” or the thoughtful, sharp Act II opener, “Where Are the Snows,” this is an undistinguished song list that doesn’t suggest the course of time nearly as well as the calendar at the lip of the stage.

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And definitely not as well as Freeman and Robinson, who play with each other like a comfortable shortstop and second baseman combination. Although he ages better than she, the difficult illusion of twin lives passing by in two hours succeeds under Davis’ direction. The chemistry works even better, and when any memory of the songs and lines has faded, Freeman and Robinson’s comic romping with each other (aided by Danny Michaels’ modest dance staging) has the kind of odd coupling of a Desi and Lucy.

They are as bright and cheerful as the set (credited to the “theater company”) is brown, dour and creaky.

Musical director Jo Monteleone’s band hops through the score, though regretfully handicapped by an intrusive, harsh synthesizer. The sound, by Nelsonics, is tolerable for a miked outdoor amphitheater setting, which was only occasionally invaded Thursday by low-flying planes.

* “I Do! I Do!,” Fullerton Civic Light Opera, Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W. Malvern Ave., Fullerton. Tuesdays-Sundays, 8:15 p.m. (meal at additional charge served Wednesdays through Sundays, 7 p.m.). $22-$33. Ends Sunday. (714) 879-1732 or 526-3832. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes. *

Lisa Robinson: Agnes

Alan Freeman: Michael

A Fullerton Civic Light Opera production of the Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt musical. Directed by Gary Davis. Musical director: Jo Monteleone. Dance staging: Danny Michaels. Sound: Nelsonics. Set and costumes: The Theatre Company. Lights: Jene Roach.