They say that falling in love is wonderful. Or so Irving Berlin put it in 1946 in the lyrics of what would prove to be his most durable show, "Annie Get Your Gun." Berlin may have been referring to the love between his two lead characters, but somehow during its two-and-a-half hour opening night at Moonlight Amphitheatre, the unthinkable happened: this ever-discerning eye managed to fall in love, too, not with someone "soft and as pink as a nursery," mind you, but with a decidedly old-fashioned, even hokey musical comedy whose shortcomings have rarely lived up to its glorious score.

Bets Malone

Copyright©2007 Ken Jacques

And you know, Berlin was right; it's wonderful, indeed.

Sporting the revised book by Peter Stone (based on the original by Herbert and Dorothy Fields), this "new" "Annie Get Your Gun" is neither very new (first appearing on Broadway almost a decade ago) nor substantially improved. Chucking a handful of not-much-missed songs like "Buffalo Bill" and "I'm a Bad, Bad Man," it also dispenses with the political incorrectness of "I'm an Indian, Too," replacing it with a below-the-surface offensiveness of a more subtle variety. Hear it, as one white man says to another, after being outwitted by an Indian in a business exchange, "How the hell did we ever get this country away from them?"

Okay, so the standard-issue book remains a product of its time, but with that indomitable Irving Berlin score, how can "Annie" go wrong?

So many possibilities, but a less-than-stellar actress in the leading role of legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley is a good place to start. I certainly wasn't around to see Ethel Merman originate the role; I even missed her much-lauded return at the age of 58 to the role that some critics were then calling "Granny" Oakley. Though she will forever be associated with the role and its signature tune, "There's No Business Like Show Business," surely the world (and Annie Oakley) doesn't begin and end with la Merman.

But due to the dearth of professionally mounted productions of the show in recent years, at least in these parts, not many actresses have even had the opportunity to take a stab at the plum role.

The most recent touring production, which starred former TV star Marilu Henner as Annie, was a disappointingly less-than-thrilling experience.

It is with eager, widestretched arms (so big one could "get lost in" them) that Moonlight Stage Productions welcomes back one of its own, the enormously talented Bets Malone, in a luminous performance that should be remembered for quite a long time.

Last seen here in "The Will Rogers Follies" two summers ago in the role of Betty Blake, another country girl with showbiz connections, Malone has a girl-next-door quality well suited to such roles; in fact, given her impressive credits, it's a wonder she hasn't played this role before. Armed with a level of musical comedy skills seldom seen (at least on this Coast) and a natural down-home charm, hers is a plucky Annie Oakley who's a force to be reckoned with, definitely not some "lily-livered rag doll." From the moment she lopes onstage to retrieve the stuffed bird shot from prim Dolly Tate's (Stacy Goldsmith) hat, her presence illuminates a show that's grown a mite musty with age. It's easy to forget the cobwebs when she launches into the tongue-in-cheek lament of "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun," or tones it down a notch for the languorous "Moonshine Lullaby" (with solid backup from a trio of cowboys played by Michael Kelly, Brian C. Veith, and Justin Weatherby). Wearing a ballgown, she also adds an unexpected cartwheel to her jubilant "I Got the Sun in the Morning."

Though it's clearly Annie's show, Randall Dodge more than holds his own as Annie's love interest and fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler. With a gleaming smile and a cocky but easygoing demeanor, he's a strong, commanding baritone in the tradition of Howard Keel and Gordon MacRae, with a comic flair that complements Malone's nicely. Their duet "Anything You Can Do" garners the expected laughs, and Berlin's contrapuntal masterpiece (from the master of counterpoint himself), "An Old Fashioned Wedding," is a gem in their capable hands that almost seems to deserve more than just a single encore. And the romantic chemistry between them in some of the book scenes is such that when Dodge rushes to kiss Malone for the first time, the stage seemed ready to ignite; Malone has somehow managed to locate that middle ground that lies squarely between the cooing country gamine of Bernadette Peters' 1998 Annie and the asexual gal pal of Ethel Merman's original interpretation.

Randall Dodge and Male Ensemble

Copyright©2007 Ken Jacques

Dodge may not get to sing "I'm a Bad, Bad Man" with the girls in this version, but John Vaughan's subtlely suggestive choreography for Frank and his cowpokes turns the usually forgettable "My Defenses Are Down" into an unusual highlight.

As director, Vaughan wisely gives Dodge and Malone free rein with much of their material, and they know just what to do with it, though his direction does little to solve the problem of all those supporting characters. As adapted for this show-within-a-show revision, many of them seem like little more than cardboard, front-of-curtain entertainment, filler in the Annie-and-Frank Show without substance unto themselves. Many of them do fine work, but in revised roles that just don't work quite as well as they may have used to.

They're all still there: David Kirk Grant as that silver fox Buffalo Bill Cody, Sean Tamburrino as Chief Sitting Bull. Ralph Johnson ably does double-duty in two distinct roles, as both Pawnee Bill and the ornery Foster Wilson, blithely singing and dancing his way through "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly" with Malone and the kids, played by Cameron Elmore, Allie Trimm, and Ashley Twomey.

Goldsmith and David Beaver do what they can with their roles as Dolly Tate and Charlie Davenport, but their relationship doesn't seem to make much sense; that their constant bickering gives way to sudden attraction in the last ten minutes is not unusual for a musical comedy, but seems especially jarring for this subplot that, like many of the supporting characters, comes across as little more than an afterthought. As the juvenile couple Tommy Keeler and Winnie Tate, Brian Conway and Natalie H. Emmons are pleasant enough singer-dancers, but their first number, "I'll Share It All With You," fails to ignite that Judy-and-Mickey spark, and by the time we get to "Who Do You Love, I Hope," it's clear that Annie is the one we love, and we hope she'll finish her costume change soon.

Thankfully, in the hands of musical director and conductor Elan McMahan, a 19-piece orchestra has rarely sounded better playing the many reprises of Berlin's encore-laden score.

Richard Odle's minimal big-top set design may best be described as barely-there, but Sharell Martin's buckskins-and-fringe costumes are accurate, and Christina L. Munich's lighting plot is uninteresting but sufficient.

But technicals aspects, be they breathtaking or simply sufficient, are not what this star-making show is really about. It's about Annie, and Malone's star turn sets the bar not only for the rest of Moonlight's promising summer season, but for any future Annie Oakleys to come.

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