‘Charity’ has share of virtues

“Sweet Charity”

New Broadway cast (DRG)

* * 1/2

A Broadway revival of “Sweet Charity” was off, then on again after headliner Christina Applegate broke a foot during out-of-town tryouts. The show then got smacked by the New York theater press and won none of the three Tony Awards for which it was nominated.

Yet through the tumult, the project seemed to follow the example of its central character, resilient dancehall rent-a-girl Charity Hope Valentine. That attitude also suffuses the cast album, which is quite sprightly even if it won’t prompt many collectors to swap it for the 1966 Gwen Verdon original.

Sweetness burbles in Applegate’s Betty Boop-like voice, making Charity seem innocent, despite her semi-sordid vocation. Then along will come a growl or a husky whisper to indicate that Charity knows the score.

The music, by lyricist Dorothy Fields and composer Cy Coleman, still va-va-vooms with its tantalizing mix of brassy burlesque and Bacharach-era pop. Applegate invests the requisite verve in such gems of as “I’m the Bravest Individual” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” while the dancehall hostesses enticingly solicit their way through “Big Spender.”

The show has been somewhat reworked to interpolate “A Good Impression,” from the songwriters’ unproduced Eleanor Roosevelt bio-musical “Eleanor,” as an additional character-defining song for the fraidy-cat suitor Oscar, portrayed by Denis O’Hare. As extras, the album offers a previously unrecorded verse of “Where Am I Going?” -- sung by Applegate -- as well as Coleman’s jazzy demo recordings of “Baby, Dream Your Dream” and three other songs, plus Fields’ husky-voiced spin through a couple of verses of “Big Spender.”

*

Elvis is found, now the play is missing

“All Shook Up”

Original Broadway cast

(Sony BMG)

* 1/2

WOW, check out the songs: “Hound Dog,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Burning Love.” Sounds like a great Elvis compilation, right? Just one problem: There’s no Elvis.

Oh, sure, he’s the organizing principle here. His recording catalog has been ransacked to provide the score for this Broadway musical, for which playwright Joe DiPietro (“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) devised a Shakespeare-meets-”Footloose” story line. Twenty-five songs associated with the King have been divided among the inhabitants of a stuffy little 1950s town and the leather-jacketed, motorcycle-riding stranger who teaches them how to wiggle their pelvises.

“Love Me Tender” is sung in the shimmering soprano of a young woman (Jenn Gambatese) yearning for romance. “Heartbreak Hotel” is performed by a choir of townspeople lamenting their lonely lives. “I Don’t Want To” is delivered by the stranger (Cheyenne Jackson) once he realizes he’s in love with Ed -- who’s really the soprano in disguise.

Little of this context is evident in the recording, however. The listener just hears familiar songs being performed by unfamiliar voices -- nice voices, mostly, especially Jackson’s propulsive rock baritone, but unfamiliar nevertheless.

Some of the musical settings -- by Stephen Oremus -- feature new combinations of ‘50s-era sounds, but with the exception of those numbers now pumped full of gospel energy, the results do little to help us hear the songs afresh.