The Songs Are Still De-Lovely in ‘Anything Goes’

When mounting “Anything Goes,” ignore the title sentiment.

The show is primarily a string of mediocre gags and great songs. A revival should maintain professional standards in both the comedy and the music.

For the Reprise! version of the 1934 chestnut, at Freud Playhouse, director Glenn Casale and musical director Gerald Sternbach keep the standard high.

In fact, the Reprise! method of putting the band on stage and using a stripped-down set may be the best way to handle a show with such a flimsy plot and cardboard characters. The point is to put the gags and the songs and the satire of celebrity worship up front, presented straight to the audience without scenic distractions, almost as if we’re back in vaudeville. If the shipboard shenanigans involving cross-class romances and mistaken identities make no sense, it doesn’t matter.

Rachel York plays nightclub impresario Reno Sweeney with sparkly sophistication. She has a big voice, but it isn’t a Mermanesque buzz saw; she treats the songs with a degree of subtlety.

She’s decked out handsomely by costume designers Steven Howard and Bob Miller--first, in a slinky beige evening gown, but more memorably in a bright red-and-white shipboard ensemble that picks up on her red lipstick and white teeth as she opens her mouth to sing.

Brent Barrett looks like an Arrow Shirt model as Billy Crocker, the story’s stockbroker/stowaway. His voice suggests the era’s crooners, yet he also manages to unveil a lower range with some heft.

Billy’s romantic preference for the ingenue Hope Harcourt over the effervescent Reno is unfathomable. Nonetheless, Hope’s rather lackluster qualities do not reflect on Anastasia Barzee, who plays her with a lustrous sound and a good-sport quality.

Jason Graae leads the comic pack as Moonface Martin, a gangster who is more often scared than scary. Anyone who has seen Graae’s work knows that he could sleepwalk his way through this role and still get laughs. Fortunately, he’s wide awake and provides much of the production’s pulse.

DeLee Lively, whose name sounds as if it could be a lyric from the show’s song “It’s De-Lovely,” is big and brassy as Moonface’s moll with a heart of cheese. Larry Cedar is light and reedy as the wealthy Brit who takes such joy in learning American slang that you can almost see why Reno turns her attentions to him.

Sally Struthers gets laughs as Hope’s mercenary high-society mom. She’s doing a part that once might have been played by Jean Stapleton, her “All in the Family” mom. Fred Willard is on hand too, doing a shtick as Billy’s tipsy boss.

Choreographer Dan Mojica’s troops, especially Austin Miller as the ship’s purser, have a few moments to shine, despite limited space, and do their part to keep our mind off the plot. This is the 1987 version of the original book, adapted by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, but much of the patter is still lame. And the story is saddled with a wince-worthy subplot about two Chinese immigrants.

Cole Porter’s score is the show’s redeeming glory, and musical director Sternbach treats it with care.

This is the first Reprise! show since the death of the group’s original musical director, Peter Matz, who was more of a genial audience presence than most of his peers because of his placement on stage and his occasional interventions into the action.

Matz is honored with a program page and with a paragraph in a note by producing artistic director Marcia Seligson. He isn’t mentioned from the stage, however. Instead, the cast does an encore rendition of Porter’s “Take Me Back to Manhattan,” as yet another tribute to the spirit of New Yorkers.

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“Anything Goes,” Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, UCLA. Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m.; Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 29. $50-$60. (310) 825-2101. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Rachel York...Reno Sweeney

Brent Barrett...Billy Crocker

Jason Graae...Moonface Martin

Anastasia Barzee...Hope Harcourt

Sally Struthers...Evangeline Harcourt

Fred Willard...Elisha Whitney

Larry Cedar...Lord Evelyn Oakleigh

DeLee Lively...Erma

Austin Miller...Purser

Brendan Ford...Captain

Joe Hart...Henry T. Dobson

Colin Kim...Luke

Glenn Shiroma...John

Music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Original book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, adapted by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman. Directed by Glenn Casale. Musical direction by Gerald Sternbach. Choreographed by Dan Mojica. Set by Bradley Kaye. Costumes by Steven Howard and Bob Miller. Lighting by Tom Ruzika. Sound by Philip G. Allen. Stage manager Jill Gold.