‘Martin,’ Is That You?

Now on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre: “Who Wants to Marry a 16th Century Protestant?”

Our contestants include two soldiers claiming to be the real Martin Guerre, native of Artigat, “village of bitter fools,” as one judgmental character (a judge, actually) calls it.

In truth the musical in question carries the title “Martin Guerre.” Since its 1996 London production, its subsequent revised London production and the 1998 revision of the revision, it has played U.S. engagements in Minneapolis; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle, and will likely embark on a full-scale national tour next year.

After all the revisions by its dogged team of musical theater craftsmen, after several brave remountings financed by “Les Miserables” and “Miss Saigon” impresario Cameron Mackintosh, no one wants the result to be drab. But it is. “Martin Guerre” is not thrilling, nor (despite its most feverish power ballads) is it drenched in flop sweat. “Neither saint nor witch,” as one of the story’s two Martin Guerres is described, late in a rather dour game.

Throughout, you can appreciate how hard co-authors Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg have toiled to activate the material’s most compelling emotional aspects. The writers and their subject may be fundamentally mismatched. Boublil and Schonberg are talented thrashers by nature. In “Les Miserables,” a work infinitely more satisfying than “Miss Saigon,” composer Schonberg’s pop vocabulary made sense with Victor Hugo’s thrashing melodrama. “Martin Guerre” can take only so much of a pounding.

This version locates its true, multifarious story in the year 1564. Catholics and Protestants are waging holy war. On the battlefield we meet Martin (Hugh Panaro) and his comrade in arms, Arnaud (Stephen R. Buntrock).

In flashback we see what Martin has left behind in Artigat. At 14, he was forced into amarriage to Bertrande (Erin Dilly), never consummated. Martin’s neighbors blamed the endless, crop-destroying rains on the young man’s inability or unwillingness to procreate. Martin is shunned as “Satan’s child” and publicly flogged.

Three months after Martin’s apparent death in battle, Arnaud arrives in Artigat with news of his friend’s death. Immediately he is taken by everyone for Martin. Bertrande accepts this new, improved, hunky Martin as her own. Then Martin No. 1 returns.

Daniel Vigne’s excellent 1982 film “The Return of Martin Guerre” made the questions of Bertrande’s complicity both complex and affecting. The film (remade in America as “Sommersby”) suited the legend itself; it was a strong story told movingly, without suds.

To its credit this latest “Martin Guerre” isn’t a bloated, 10-tons-of-scenery affair (though John Napier’s wooden-planked unit set is surprisingly unimaginative). Director Conall Morrison & Co. strive for a simple story-theater approach, with the medium-size cast constantly onstage witnessing the action, playing various Catholic and Protestant factions within Artigat.

The show’s scale feels right, yet both material and production suffer from overexertion. The book (by Boublil and Schonberg) and lyrics (Boublil and Stephen Clark) provide a stage full of seething religious hypocrites and little else. (Typical villager line: “Damn Protestants! Burn in hell, heretics!”) The score doesn’t know where its strengths lie. “If You Still Love Me,” the prettiest thing in it, doesn’t have a chance up against “Live With Somebody You Love,” a junker with lyrics that send your brain into alternative-title mode (“Love With Somebody You Live?” “Lie With Somebody You Loathe?”). The brutal over-amplification doesn’t help matters.

It’s a solid if unexceptional cast overall. As Martin, Panaro works hard to imbue this innocent with some grit. Buntrock’s sturdy Arnaud and Dilly’s careworn Bertrande keep admirable pace with the upper-register demands of the score. In the supporting ranks, only Michael Arnold’s shamelessly effective turn as the village idiot Benoit manages to snag our sympathies.

Rather touchingly, “Martin Guerre” makes two tentative stabs at 1980s-brand spectacle. Early on a big cannon goes off, sending a lovely smoke ring wafting over the orchestra section. And near the end, the angry villagers set fire to a select portion of the unit set. The effect is middling. So is everything in between.

* “Martin Guerre,” Ahmanson Theatre, Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Also this Sunday, March 5, 12 and 19 at 7:30 p.m.; March 23, 30, April 6 at 2 p.m. Ends April 8. $15-$70. (213) 628-2772. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Hugh Panaro: Martin Guerre

Arnaud du Thil: Stephen R. Buntrock

Bertrande de Rols: Erin Dilly

Jose Llana: Guillaume

John Leslie Wolfe: Pierre Guerre

Kathy Taylor: Madame de Rols

John Herrera: Father Dominic

Michael Arnold: Benoit

Alvin Crawford: Andre

Angela Lockett: Catherine

D.C. Anderson, Johmaalya Adelekan, Pierce Peter Brandt, Susan Dawn Carson, Adam Dyer, Hunter Foster, Chris Lamontagne, Jodie Langel, Megan Osterhaus, Sean Jeremy Palmer, Joe Paparella, Diana Kavilis, Bill Szobody: Villagers of Artigat

Book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg. Lyrics by Alain Boublil and Stephen Clark. Directed by Conall Morrison. Set design by John Napier. Costumes by Andreane Neofitou. Lighting by Howard Harrison. Sound by Andrew Bruce and Mark Menard. Orchestrations by William David Brohn. Musical staging and choreography by David Bolger.