STAGE REVIEW : Director, Choreographer Help ‘World’

SAN DIEGO —  Sharp and snazzy is the way “The World Goes ‘Round” at the San Diego Civic Theatre through Sunday.

The San Diego Playgoers presentation, a revue of 31 songs from the 30-year-old collaboration of John Kander and Fred Ebb, not only provides a valuable overview of the work of this team of Broadway vets, but also a look at the work of the up-and-coming team of Scott Ellis and Susan Stroman, who conceived the show along with David Thompson.

Ellis, who directed, and Stroman, who choreographed, can be credited for making even the weak numbers look good. Because, yes, there are many weak songs here. At their best, Kander and Ebb can produce passionate show stoppers that will stand up with anybody’s: “Maybe This Time,” from the movie version of “Cabaret,” “Isn’t This Better?” from the movie “Funny Lady,” “The World Goes ‘Round” and “New York, New York” from the movie “New York, New York.”

But their songs can also be hopelessly cliched, musically simplistic and predictably rhymed, such as the upbeat “We Can Make It” from “The Rink,” with such lines as “Some little quarrel, we’ll get through it/Love isn’t easy, we can do it” and “Yes,” which exhorts everyone to say ‘Yes!’ to life from “70, Girls, 70.”

“The World Goes ‘Round,” an Off Broadway hit in 1991, differs in effect from the Off Broadway “Closer Than Ever,” the Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire revue that played so successfully at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts this summer. “Closer Than Ever,” directed by Maltby, was a shimmering multifaceted jewel, small but sparkling with emotional complexity. In contrast, “The World Goes ‘Round” is about theatricality and the strong, primary passions that electrify large audiences.

Stroman, who won the 1992 Tony for her choreography of “Crazy For You,” adds fun to several numbers that need it, sending the performers dancing with crutches in “Pain,” a dancer’s ode to choreographers from Chita Rivera’s one-woman show and on roller skates in “The Rink,” an otherwise insipid number about skating in a rink from “The Rink.”

On occasion, by linking songs from different musicals, Ellis’ direction discovers depth less apparent in the songs when done individually. “I Don’t Remember You,” a simple song of rediscovered love from “The Happy Time” and “Sometimes A Day Goes By,” about longing for lost love from “Woman of the Year” gain a power together that neither has alone; it’s a textured effect that this team usually lacks, but that a composer such as Stephen Sondheim achieves on a regular basis.

The five-person cast, like the staging, is a joy to watch. Beautifully costumed by Lindsay W. Davis, the three women and two men can do it all--dance, sing and move from comedy to pathos in a moment. The best dancer is Karen Ziemba who exudes heat dancing as she sings about sexual desire with John Ruess in “Arthur in the Afternoon” from “The Act” and again in “All That Jazz” from “Chicago.”

The limber Joel Blum, who keeps up handsomely dancing with Ziemba in an instrumental medley from “Cabaret,” is funny in a love song to Sara Lee--yes, of cheesecake fame--and touching in “Sometimes A Day Goes By.”

Ruess, equally at ease in support as in solos, delivers on the passionate “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” the title song from the most recent Broadway-bound Kander and Ebb musical, “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

Marin Mazzie soars on the heart-tugging ballads from “Funny Lady,” and is equally at home with such breezy numbers such as “Ring Them Bells,” a song about taking chances from “Liza with a ‘Z’ ” and “Class,” a song about two rather classless ladies decrying the lack of class in the world.

Shelley Dickinson, who sings “Class” with Mazzie, gets some of the show’s funniest moments in “The Grass Is Always Greener,” also with Mazzie, but takes the spotlight with her solos of the title song and “Maybe This Time.”

The lively lighting by Phil Monat brings out the sparkle; the effects in “Money, Money” from the movie version of “Cabaret,” with dark, hooded figures and surrealistically lit faces is particularly fine. Bill Hoffman’s set provides a effective, if simple backdrop of pages from a dictionary defining melody, passion and the other concepts so key to creative work.

And Gary Stocker’s sound has absolutely no glitches--no small feat in the barn-like San Diego Civic Theatre.

The pleasures of this production make one look forward not just to the next Kander and Ebb collaboration but to the next Ellis and Stroman production.

“THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND”

Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Conceived by Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman and David Thompson. Director is Scott Ellis. Choreography by Susan Stroman. Set design by Bill Hoffman. Costumes by Lindsay W. Davis. Lighting by Phil Monat. Sound by Gary Stocker. Musical direction, vocal and dance arrangements by David Loud. With Joel Blum, Shelley Dickinson, Marin Mazzie, John Ruess and Karen Ziemba. At 8 p.m. through Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Sunday with Saturday/Sunday matinees at 2. Closes Sunday. Tickets are $22.50-$37.50. At the San Diego Civic Theatre, 202 C St., San Diego, 236-6510 or 278-TIXS.