New Musical in Manhattan

Out of This World (music & lyrics by Cole Porter; book by Dwight Taylor & Reginald Lawrence; produced by Saint Subber & Lemuel Ayers) is as festal and glittering to look at as a Christmas tree. But under the tree, precious few gifts are displayed. Often, while the eye feasts on Lemuel Ayers sets and costumes, the mind wanders and the spirits slump. The decor aside, nothing in Out of This World is even remotely out of the top drawer.

The outstanding offender is the book. The show offers less a new version than a misguided variation of the Amphitryon story. Jupiter (George Jongeyans) covets a young American girl on her honeymoon, while son Mercury (William Redfield) is under orders to snare her to Greece, and wife Juno (Charlotte Greenwood) is hot on Jupiter's trail down the slopes of Olympus. With its studious smut and clanging innuendoes, the whole thing is far more down-to-earth than even Jupiter's expedition would license. The librettists apparently fashioned their jests for audiences whose idea of sophistication is not believing in Santa Claus.

Nor does the rest of the show offer much compensation. The Cole Porter songs, such as No Lover for Me, are pleasant enough, but not really exciting, and the Porter lyrics generally display his signature without his skill. Hanya Holm enlivens the show with her decorative dances. And Out of This World brings back to Broadway, after 20-odd years, likable, prancing, perpendicular Comedienne Charlotte Greenwood. But it more or less brings her back in chains.

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