‘By Jeeves,’ the Musical Play Is a Bit Stiff

Bertie Wooster is once again getting people in trouble. His friend Augustus Fink-Nottle is in love but can’t court his girl in his own name because when Bertie pinched a policeman’s helmet and was brought up before the magistrate, Sir Watkyn Bassett, Bertie didn’t dare use his own name and so used the name Fink-Nottle. Now Fink-Nottle’s in love with Sir Watkyn’s daughter Madeline and so must employ the name Bertram Wooster, since Bertie has spoiled his own. So Bertie gets stuck with Fink-Nottle until the American jam magnate Cyrus Budge III catches on and forces our Bertie to take the name of Bingo Little. When the actual Bingo arrives, well, only Jeeves can clear up the matter then.

For the uninitiated, this is a plot of minimal complication, adapted from “The Code of the Woosters” by P.G. Wodehouse, one of the great English satirists of the century. In 1975, Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber formed a musical around Wodehouse’s priceless comic pair, the dimwitted aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his dry-as-toast, unruffable butler Jeeves. They called it “Jeeves,” and it was a famous flop. Lo, all these years later, we now have a refurbished “Jeeves,” called “By Jeeves,” which opened Thursday night at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood. And it’s still not very good.

If a spot quiz were given during almost any one of the 13 pleasant Lloyd Webber tunes in the show, the audience would be hard-pressed to say what the people onstage were singing about at any moment. You’d need Jeeves to parse this lyric (sung by the silver-voiced Emily Loesser): “Love’s maze is a crazy kaleidoscope / All roads leading diff’rent ways. / Love’s maze, like a swaying calliope /One dance where the piper pays. . . . “

As Bertie, the admirable John Scherer does have one cogent song. “Travel Hopefully,” an infectious ditty (well-played by the five-member band on a ledge above stage left) sounds as if it were penned for Petula Clark by way of Carnaby Street, and it lays out the simple philosophy of a simple man. Scherer brings aplomb and just the right attitude to his kinetic role. Looking remarkably like a young Bob Hope, he wears the constant expression of being shocked that someone as dim as he is could constantly be running into people even stupider.

From first to last, “By Jeeves” strives to please. Though you wouldn’t know it from this, Ayckbourn, who wrote the book, lyrics and directed, is a consummate man of the theater. He shoehorns a charming Wodehouse story, making some changes, into a musical whose defining joke is that it is being performed by amateur actors. The premise: Bertie Wooster, ever the accommodating good fellow, is set to perform a banjo solo at a church benefit. When he reaches offstage for the instrument, he’s handed a fying pan instead. His banjo, you see, has been pinched. So, to fill in the evening, Bertie instead tells a tale of one of his many misadventures, with the aid (or not) of a troupe of bumbling theatricals and his always helpful Jeeves.

This makes “By Jeeves” not a running commentary on the idiocies of the British class system, a la Wodehouse, but an attentuated burlesque on bad acting. The British understand there is something irresistible about amateurs smiling gamely at the audience through a torrent of onstage disasters; this is a noble tradition of hilarity from Shakespeare to Michael Frayn (not to mention their recent American descendant, “Waiting for Guffman”). But the old “Noises Off” magic doesn’t happen here, because the stakes never seem to matter either in the musical or in the play-within-the-musical.

The rest of the ensemble is game but fairly unexceptional. Edward Keith Baker is adequate as Jeeves, one of the finest straight men in literature. Maintaining a stiff posture, he conveys an inner code that allows Jeeves, when feeling particularly expressive, to raise an arm above the elbow. He keeps a steady watch on Bertie to check whether or not his charge is comprehending whatever is transpiring, a situation that requires constant monitoring. But beyond that, Baker doesn’t hint at an exquisite sensibility in Jeeves--a man who fully understands both human limitation and the futility of doing anything about it.

When the creators have Jeeves give way to merriment and dance a short jig during one of the desperate final two numbers, they look as if they had thrown up their hands entirely. At this point, the audience is best advised to adopt a stiff upper lip.

* “By Jeeves,” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends April 20. $27.50-$40. (310) 208-5454. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.