Timeless Tunes and a Star Turn Carry a Most Effortful ‘Fella’

Frank Loesser’s score for “The Most Happy Fella” can break your heart six ways to Sunday, as those who caught the Gerald Gutierrez 1991 revival at the Doolittle may remember. With a sigh. Never had such an admittedly corny romance, with such gorgeous quasi-operatic musical aspirations (“My Heart Is So Full of You,” “How Beautiful the Days”) alongside tuneful forays down Tin Pan Alley (“Joey, Joey, Joey,” “Big D”), been treated so delicately.

The current Reprise! edition isn’t the same sort of heartbreaker. It’s a pretty good, stand-and-deliver version, with one first-rate performance--Anastasia Barzee’s Rosabella--and several fine voices in support. What’s missing is a sense of ease. Everyone’s working hard. Too hard.

“The Most Happy Fella” asks a lot of audiences. Premiering on Broadway in the same season as a little something called “My Fair Lady,” its narrative mechanics clunk and sputter by comparison. But there’s nothing dated in the power of Loesser’s music.

In “The Most Happy Fella,” 60-ish, Sicilian-born Tony (George Ball) is a prosperous grape rancher in Napa Valley. Under the overprotective wing of his sister, Marie (Eileen Barnett), Tony lives a pleasant life, lonely around the edges. But dining in San Francisco one night, he falls hard for a waitress, leaving her a valuable tiepin as a tip.

The waitress--Tony calls her Rosabella, her real name is Amy--cannot recall Tony’s face. Yet soon enough, Tony’s beloved becomes a mail-order bride of sorts. Insecure about his age and appearance, Tony sends her a photo not of himself, but of his hunky foreman, Joe (Rodney Gilfry). Rosabella arrives in Napa, realizes on the very night of her wedding that she’s been tricked, nearly loses Tony in a car accident and is promptly taken by Joe for an anguished roll in some nearby hay.

So that’s the first act. There’s a pair of comic lovers supplanting the Tony-Rosabella-Joe triangle: Rosabella’s waitress pal, Cleo (Jennifer Leigh Warren), and ranch hand Herman (Kevin Earley), both of whom hail from big D, little a double l-a-s.

In its grander stretches, Loesser’s score carries intense vocal demands. A high note or two has been lowered to suit the voices here. Ball’s Tony is most effective in the angry later sequences. You wouldn’t mind him not delivering all the arias with such a full-throttle attack. The same goes for Gilfry’s Joe; he has a voice for days but unleashes his signature killer--”Joey, Joey, Joey”--with an expression suggesting the character has recently been hit on the head by a horseshoe.

To my taste, Barzee is particularly affecting, simply because she doesn’t push; when she tells Tony that he’s “a nice, kind man,” you sense her own surprise at her dawning feelings for him. Warren’s Cleo overworks the opening (“Ooh, My Feet”) but matches up engagingly with Earley’s Herman on “Big D” and “I Like Everybody.” There’s terrific supporting work from Sean Smith’s Doc and, in the chorus ranks, Natalie Nucci. Peter Matz conducts the 17-piece orchestra, large-ish by Reprise! standards.

Matz’s tempos adhere to the 1956 original more so than the ’91 revival, which is a mistake, I think; jolly numbers such as “Abbondanza” sound better at a faster clip. Also, director Arthur Allan Seidelman and his designers don’t do much to locate “The Most Happy Fella” in its proper period, the 1920s; the costumes appear to roam the century pretty freely.

The musical, based on Sidney Howard’s “They Knew What They Wanted,” removed Howard’s political overlay--in the original, foreman Joe was tying to unionize the ranch--and concentrated on the elemental, rather pathetic circumstance Tony finds himself in. It is a fairy tale, with several narrative junctures that stretch credibility. I believe the technical term for this is a “c’mon” moment.

Which is, of course, where music comes in. It exists to take your mind off the c’mon. Loesser’s finest melodies here are so potent and diversely styled and beautiful, you find yourself believing in these characters and their hoked-up plight.

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“The Most Happy Fella,” Reprise! Broadway’s Best, Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, UCLA near Sunset Boulevard at Hilgard Avenue, Westwood. Parking in UCLA Lot 3. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Nov. 18. $55-$60. (310) 825-2101 or (213) 365-3500. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

George Ball: Tony

Anastasia Barzee: Rosabella

Rodney Gilfry: Joe

Jennifer Leigh Warren: Cleo

Eileen Barnett: Marie

Kevin Earley: Herman

Trevor Brackney, Gibby Brand, David Brouwer, Nohea Bryce, Beth Curry, R.F. Daley, Patrice deGraff-Arenas, John Ganun, Pia C. Glenn, Daniel Guzman, Damon Kirsche, Joseph McNally, Natalie Nucci, Stephen Reed, Tricia Ridgway, Brendan Silver, Sean Smith: Ensemble

*

Book, music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. Directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman. Musical direction by Peter Matz. Choreography by Kay Cole. Scenic design by Robert L. Smith. Costumes by Scott A. Lane, Lighting design by Tom Ruzika. Sound by Philip G. Allen. Stage manager Sherry Santillano.