The Red-Headed Moppet Wins Again

The touring “Annie” that opened at the Pantages Theatre on Tuesday is a good introduction to this evergreen musical, at least for kids, but the deletion of the score’s most satirical number makes it less than an authoritative “Annie” for adults.

Brittny Kissinger, in the title role, first played Annie on Broadway at the age of 8, which sounds young for a character who’s 10. But Kissinger herself is now 10--at the peak of her credibility as Annie, perhaps. Considering Annie’s cartoon dimensions, Kissinger’s performance is well modulated. She doesn’t belt every single note, and she easily projects spunk and charm. So do her fellow orphans, though their movements as a group, outside their big numbers, are occasionally stiff.

Conrad John Schuck owns the role of Oliver Warbucks by now, after playing it umpteen hundred times, yet he doesn’t betray the slightest trace of boredom. Both his initial bulldog routine and his eventual softening appear lived-in and authentic. Kay Story, as the normally crisp Grace Farrell, winningly executes her second-act bursts of spontaneous exuberance.

Sally Struthers is blessedly over-the-top as Miss Hannigan, a role that remains funny no matter how much mugging it inspires. Likewise, Laurent Giroux’s slimy Rooster Hannigan and Karen Byers-Blackwell’s bimbo are very amusing. It’s odd that critics sometimes dismiss “Annie” as entirely too sugary when it contains three such vibrantly shady caricatures and gives them a devilish paean to greed, “Easy Street,” that works like gangbusters in every professional production I’ve seen.

Still, this production is, in fact, more sugary than most “Annies,” for one main reason: the elimination of “We’d Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover,” with its melody by Charles Strouse that pays homage to Kurt Weill and its Martin Charnin lyrics that sardonically take the ex-president to task. Normally sung by the residents of a shantytown, the song is the show’s reminder that it wasn’t only adorable orphans and comic villains who were depressed by the Depression.

True, “Hoover” doesn’t advance the narrative of Thomas Meehan’s book, and the kids in the audience probably never heard of Herbert Hoover. Maybe it was felt that today’s kids wouldn’t like something that might momentarily confuse them--and cause them to ask their parents later what that Hoover number was all about. Or was someone concerned that the parents might not understand that number either?

Whatever the reason, it’s too bad that the official “20th anniversary” revival of “Annie,” directed by lyricist Charnin himself, expunged one of the show’s most stimulating numbers and added fuel to the fire of those who claim the show is too sappy.

BE THERE

Annie plays Tuesdays-Thursdays and Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. Through Jan. 17. (213) 365-3500. Tickets are $32-$57.