You have to hand it to ‘Applause’

Energetic professionalism marks “Applause,” presented by Reprise! at the Freud Playhouse. This amiable revival of the Tony-winning musical based on the film “All About Eve” has a crowd-grabbing efficiency that is often exhilarating.

The smash of the 1969-70 Broadway season, “Applause” earned plaudits for director-choreographer Ron Field’s trendy staging and headliner Lauren Bacall, whose musical debut as aging star Margo Channing won her a Tony and a second career. Showbiz sages Betty Comden and Adolph Green shrewdly updated Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s screenplay, and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams placed their pop-tinged score with notable skill, some clunkers notwithstanding.

If hardly a landmark, like Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s “Company,” which opened a month later, “Applause” is an agreeable mainstream vehicle.

Director David Lee and choreographer Mark Esposito treat it as a period piece worth another look. After musical director Gerald Sternbach’s superb orchestra nails the overture, a gold curtain rises from Evan A. Bartoletti’s exposed backstage set. It is the 1969 Tony Awards, where former winner Margo (Sheryl Lee Ralph) presents the best actress prize to dewy Eve Harrington (Jean Louisa Kelly). Eve’s gushing thanks goes silent, Margo’s smile freezes and a snide voice-over tells us how Margo really feels.

Philip J. Lang’s orchestrations chug forth as set pieces shift in Tom Ruzika’s half-lights to Margo’s packed dressing room a year and a half earlier. First-nighters in Randy Gardell’s era costumes burble the droll nonsense of “Backstage Babble,” and the principals assemble. Producer Howard Benedict (James Avery), playwright Buzz Richards (Kevin Chamberlin) and Bill Sampson (Kevin Earley), Margo’s director and lover, interact with Margo’s hairdresser, Duane (John Fleck), and the high-strung, warmhearted star. Buzz’s wife, Karen (Veanne Cox), arrives with star-struck Eve in tow.

Soon, this neophyte is indispensable to Margo, who gradually perceives that her adoring fan is a scheming viper. By the end of Act 1, Eve is Margo’s understudy; by the finale, each woman has gotten what she really deserves.

The staging trims ballast from Comden and Green’s book, which only archivists will miss, and cuts the ballad “Hurry Back,” which only Bacall will miss. Harder to miss is the ace ensemble, which sails across the Village-disco high jinks of Margo’s “But Alive” and the indestructible title tune. This showstopper, with its pocket history of Broadway musicals from bottle-hatted “Fiddler” dancers to “Oh, Calcutta!” bare bottoms, benefits from soloist Scarlett Esposito’s high-voltage moves and Donald Pippin’s thrilling vocal charts.

Lee’s colorblind casting may bother purists; that’s their problem. Ralph, less arch-goddess than earth mother, at times drops lyrics and intonation. Nevertheless, she holds her own, offering an easy affinity with Earley’s velvet-voiced Bill and a snarling take on “Welcome to the Theatre.”

Kelly’s Eve would hardly be Ralph’s understudy in real life. Yet, this is musical-comedy life, and Kelly builds from fawning fawn to a ferocious “One Hallowe’en” that suggests her next victim will be Patti LuPone’s Evita. Avery and Chamberlin deftly underplay their pivotal parts. Cox, adroit as ever, and Fleck, channeling Thelma Ritter as gay caballero, are both sublime.

“Applause” isn’t, but it’s enjoyable enough, and its players should taste the sound that says love for the rest of its limited run.

*

‘Applause’

Where: Freud Playhouse, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Westwood

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: May 22

Price: $60 to $65

Contact: (310) 825-2101

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes