‘Moving On’ Meaningfully Rolls Along

“Moving On,” now in its American premiere at the Laguna Playhouse, marks the fifth official revue to ransack Stephen Sondheim’s big bag of songs. That’s a lot of Sondheim revues. Quality is quality, however, as jewelry salesfolk like to say, and high, careful, inspiring craftsmanship cannot be taken lightly. “Moving On” is a most enjoyable show not for its packaging or structure--it’s just a standard-issue revue--but for its contents.

This whole business of revue-ing the Sondheim situation began a quarter-century ago with “Side by Side by Sondheim.” Devised by Englishman David Kernan, “Side by Side” brought Broadway’s most exacting and formidable musical theater voice a wider audience. Last year Kernan revisited the revue format with “Moving On” in London. He has restaged the show here in Laguna Beach.

Here’s what you get: Five performers, 42 songs, a strong and mellow trio featuring musical director Diane King Vann at the piano, backed by Randy Gravett (bass) and Steve Velez (cello). Between song sets, excerpts of a Sondheim interview are heard, in which Sondheim ruminates on a tricky childhood, rife with his mother’s power plays and his father’s gentle counterbalancing act. There’s also a good deal on commitment, friendship, the solace and joy of the keyboard, and the thing Sondheim says he finds especially elusive as he has grown older: “serenity.”

“I just took the city for granted,” Sondheim says of growing up in New York. From Porter to Rodgers and Hart to the Gershwins, the subject of Manhattan’s crazy-making exuberance has been addressed time and again. Yet in Sondheim, that craziness took on a more honest hue. In “Another Hundred People” (from “Company”), urban isolation has never been captured more brilliantly.

The song, gorgeously delivered by Tami Tappan, is part of a New York segment. It features also “So Many People,” from Sondheim’s early, extremely charming score for “Saturday Night” and, movingly, a version of “On a Sunday,” from “Sunday in the Park With George.” The park in that musical was outside Paris, not inside Manhattan, but the location shift is subtle, and it works. The post-Sept. 11 pathos is inescapable.

The five voices complement the harmonies pleasingly. On her own, Teri Ralston takes it nice and easy with “Broadway Baby” as well as “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” letting the numbers build at their own pace. David Engel acquits himself smoothly and wittily on “All for You,” a duet with Ann Morrison that’s really a ballad to himself. Christopher Carothers tends to look a little determined while smiling, and a song such as “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” isn’t much fun when sung by a toothy juvenile type, but he sounds good on “Pretty Women.”

Tappan stands out for reasons you can quantify, and then, finally, for reasons you can’t. Some performers sell their own charm; more rarely, some find a way to flatter the material while winning over an audience, and the latter feels like a natural occurrence rather than a project. Tappan is one of the rare ones. When she and Engel breeze their way through the tap break on “The Old Piano Roll,” choreographed by Gene Castle, you’re reacquainted with the straight-ahead pleasures to be found in such things.

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“Moving On,” Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. No performance Thanksgiving. Added performance Nov. 19, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 2. $42-$49. (949) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

‘Moving On’

Christopher Carothers, David Engel, Ann Morrison, Teri Ralston, Tami Tappan: Ensemble

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Additional music by Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein. Devised and directed by David Kernan. Scenic design by Dwight Richard Odle. Lighting by Paulie Jenkins. Costumes by Michael Pacciorini. Sound by David Edwards. Musical direction by Diane King Vann. Choreography by Gene Castle. Production stage manager Nancy Staiger.