Despite flaws, ‘Yankee’ retains a certain charm

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s “A Connecticut Yankee” straddles a transitional period in American musical theater, making it of tremendous interest to fans of the art form. Opportunities to get one’s hands on a script, much less see it performed, are pretty much nonexistent, however.

The intrepid explorer-preservationists of the Musical Theatre Guild have rectified the situation by putting together a semi-staged concert reading that was presented Monday in Glendale and will be repeated next Monday in Long Beach.

First seen on Broadway in 1927-28, the musical, inspired by Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” cemented the early promise of the Rodgers & Hart partnership and introduced the songs “My Heart Stood Still” and “Thou Swell.” The show resurfaced in revised form in November 1943, just 7 1/2 months after Rodgers, with new partner Oscar Hammerstein II, had revolutionized musical theater with “Oklahoma!” Rodgers hoped the revival might rescue Hart from depression and drink, and their renewed work resulted in Hart’s witty lyrics for “To Keep My Love Alive.” Five days after “Yankee” opened, Hart died.

Musical Theatre Guild’s quickly rehearsed presentation has more of a slapdash feel than many of its other projects, and this encounter with the jokey, old-fashioned, barely there script for the 1943 version (credited to 1927 co-collaborator Herbert Fields) confirms why the show is seldom performed nowadays. Still, for hard-core musical theater buffs, it’s geek nirvana.

In Hartford, Conn., of 1943, a bachelor party for Navy Lt. Martin Barrett (David Engel) is crashed first by his sultry WAVE lieutenant of a bride (Karen Culliver), then by the impetuous younger woman (Melissa Lyons) who has, at the last moment, captured his heart. When the women encounter each other, Martin takes a bottle to the head and, as he reels to the floor, is transported to Camelot (a time period lodged in his mind by a suit of armor presented as a party gag).

Directed by Lewis Wilkenfeld, the guild’s presentation -- performed with scripts in hand -- involves a bare stage and a handful of cane-style cabaret chairs. The score is performed by a band of seven, and performances are mere caricatures.

A couple of running gags help to enliven things, though. Joe Hart, portraying the knight who discovers Martin in Camelot, voices his own creaking-armor sound effects. Funny use also is made of two put-upon supernumeraries (Roy Leake Jr. and William Martinez) who, at one point, are dressed in drag and pressed into service as shimmying ladies in waiting for the “Camelot Samba.”

daryl.miller@latimes.com

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‘A Connecticut Yankee’

Where: Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach

When: 7:30 p.m. Monday

Price: $27.50

Contact: (562) 856-1999, Ext. 4

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes