Uneven ‘42nd Street’ Has Its Moments

Many of the patrons attending Tuesday night’s opening performance of “42nd Street” at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium may not have realized they were crossing an Actors’ Equity picket line, since protesters (including two members of the musicians’ union as well) were down the front entrance steps at street level, while much of the audience entered the auditorium via the parking structures and grounds.

Equity’s beef? That the Pasadena Civic has elected to open its Broadway Series with a nonunion tour--a move that Equity leaflets distributed outside the theater denounce as unfair, while the producers have inserted their own rebuttal in the playbill.

Union considerations aside, this is a serviceably fluffy production, a pretty, paint-by-the-numbers re-creation--with few noticeable variations--by Tony Parise, the production’s director-choreographer and a veteran of the original cast. However, when famous Broadway director Julian Marsh (Robert Sheridan) addresses his Depression-era cast with “You’re going to work 12 hours a day and seven days a week. . . . You’re on your way to glory and 32 bucks a week”--we’re momentarily at a loss as to whether this is a period speech from the musical or a manifesto from current management.

Many in the cast, including charming Rebecca Christine Kupka as starry-eyed ingenue Peggy Sawyer, are fresh out of school and rarin’ to put on a show. The more seasoned performers, largely veterans of the nonunion touring circuit, are competent to fine. As sassy songwriter Maggie Jones, Kathy Halenda steals the show with her magnificent belt voice and earthy charm.

The dancing is sometimes clunky, as when the chorines of “We’re in the Money” thump their oversized coin “dance platforms” onto the stage floor like steelworkers going off shift. This production only occasionally shows splits at its seams, but these gaps, however infrequent, emit the faint but persistent aroma of amateurism.

* “42nd Street,” Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 330 E. Green St., Pasadena. Today-Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $21-$47.50. (818) 564-2680. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.