Aboard the Love Boat

“You’ve never seen a show like this before,” sings Cap’n Andy (Tom Bosley), hawking the wares of his floating theater, the Cotton Blossom, after it docks briefly at Natchez, 1887. When Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s masterwork “Show Boat” first opened in 1927, no one had ever seen a show like this before--its melding of melody, lyrics and book transformed the theater forever. “Show Boat” wasn’t opera, wasn’t vaudeville, wasn’t operetta, wasn’t musical comedy. “Show Boat” was alchemy, better known as musical theater.

A hundred years after the setting of its first scene, “Show Boat” is magnificent still--director Harold Prince and producer Garth Drabinsky have blown off the cobwebs that accumulated in subsequent film versions of the show. This beautiful production, which had its premiere in Toronto in 1993, won five 1995 Tonys and stopped at the Ahmanson last November, is a precious slice of history and a living, breathing piece of theater. It will be at the Orange County Performing Arts Center until Sept. 21.

Some roles in “Show Boat” are stronger and some weaker than in previous incarnations. If you’ve seen the Prince version before, this largely new cast (of 61) will allow you to discover different aspects in the 40-year family saga of the men and women who work on and around the Cotton Blossom. With “Show Boat,” you can shine a light in any corner and find it fully furnished.

The main elements are all in place: Florence Klotz’s lush costumes, the dances woven in so organically by choreographer Susan Stroman, Prince’s remarkable sensitivity to stage movement and music, and Eugene Lee’s wonderful set and Richard Pilbrow’s lighting (both particularly ravishing in the second-act Chicago scenes). The story, from Edna Ferber’s novel, is undeniably melodramatic in Act 2, which is full of the noble, womanly sacrifice that ‘20s audiences loved so well. But Ferber’s story is deepened immeasurably by the rich music and the limitless humanity of Hammerstein’s book and lyrics.

The music is in good hands with this cast. As Joe, the stevedore who sings “Ol’ Man River,” the gifted baritone Andre Solomon-Glover brings haunted eyes and a contained anger that I have not seen in Joe before. As Frank and Ellie, the husband-and-wife musical comedy team, real-life husband and wife Kirby and Beverly Ward are charming. In the ingenue role, Sarah Pfisterer overdoes Magnolia’s youthful exuberance (too much skipping!) but has a lovely voice. As Gaylord Ravenal, the riverboat gambler, John Ruess has a vibrant tenor and presence. In the role of the cook Queenie, for which she won a Tony Award, Gretha Boston is as solid as ever. Debbie De Coudreaux sings fetchingly as Julie but her acting can be awkward. As the sour Parthy who finally softens with the birth of her granddaughter, Karen Morrow forces her character’s crabbiness. As her husband, the life-loving, theater-loving Cap’n Andy, Bosley is relaxed and funny.

“Show Boat” is about many things--romantic love, parental love, friendship, injustice and racism, but most centrally it is about theater itself. In Act 2, we are treated to the play-within-the-play, circa 1887: a gaslit melodrama on the Cotton Blossom, a crude and laughable thing that nonetheless holds its volatile audience in thrall. “Show Boat” is a valentine to theater people, a self-reflexive work of art and a moving explication of how we experience our own lives by watching other lives acted out upon the stage.

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BE THERE

“Show Boat,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 27. $32.50-$67.50. (714) 556-ARTS, (714) 740-7878, (213) 365-3500. Running time: 3 hours.

John Clonts: Steve

Gretha Boston: Queenie

Karen Morrow: Parthy

Tom Bosley: Cap’n Andy

Beverly Ward: Ellie

Kirby Ward: Frank

Debbie De Coudreaux: Julie

John Ruess: Gaylord Ravenal

Sarah Pfisterer: Magnolia

Andre Solomon-Glover: Joe

Elizabeth Mary O’Neil: Kim

With: David Earl Hart, Ellen Horst, Scott Mikita, Darcy Pulliam, Michael Scott, Ralph Williams, Jeff Bannon, Lorna Hampson, Michelle E. White, Amy Centner, Bluejean Ashley Secrist, Louise-Marie Mennier, Paige Tuddenham, Katherine Valentine, Jessica Kostival and others.

An Orange County Performing Arts Center and Livent (U.S.) production. Music by Jerome Kern. Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Based on the novel by Edna Ferber. Directed by Harold Prince. Choreography Susan Stroman. Production design Eugene Lee. Costumes Florence Klotz. Lights Richard Pilbrow. Sound Martin Levan. Music supervisor Jeffrey Huard. Orchestrations Robert Russell Bennett and William David Brohn. Dance music arranger David Krane. Musical director Derek Bate.