`WHEN PIGS FLY'S' GAY OLD TIME.

Byline: Reed Johnson Theater Critic

If memory serves, it was Fran Lebowitz who observed that, minus the contributions of gay men and women, American popular culture would consist of ``Let's Make a Deal.''

Notice, by the way, that Lebowitz didn't say ``Hollywood Squares,'' for reasons that Paul Lynde's devotees must surely consider self-evident.

Lynde, alas, is no longer with us. But his blithe spirit - not to mention those of Busby Berkeley and Flo Ziegfeld - lives on in ``Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly,'' the shamelessly entertaining adult musical fable playing at the Coronet Theatre in West Hollywood.

So, too, does the courageous, good-humored soul of Crabtree, who conceived this extravagant pastiche along with lyricist/sketch-writer Mark Waldrop and composer Dick Gallagher, the same trio that put together the 1993-94 off-Broadway hit ``Whoop-Dee-Doo.''

A brilliant, iconoclastic costume designer and former Broadway chorus boy, Crabtree died on June 28, 1996, of complications from AIDS, at age 41. A few weeks later, ``When Pigs Fly'' opened to critical hosannas at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre on West 42nd Street in Manhattan.

``When Pigs Fly'' is Crabtree's satirical last will and testament and, in a very real sense, the story of his short, compulsively inventive life. The nimble five-man troupe that acts out his ``autobiography'' - Christopher Carothers, JM J. Bullock (another ``Hollywood Squares'' alum), Loren Freeman, Blake Hammond and David Pevsner - bring honor to Crabtree's alchemic genius for spinning thrift-shop materials into pure comic platinum.

Crabtree's musical memoir is haunted by his high school guidance counselor, Miss Roundhole (Pevsner), a congenital naysayer who told the young Crabtree (Carothers) that he'd make it in show biz ``when pigs fly!''

But the fresh-faced kid from Excelsior Springs, Mo., has bigger career plans than plumbing or chicken farming (Miss Roundhole's recommendations).

This slim premise, executed with the gung-ho enthusiasm of an Andy Hardy movie, supplies all the excuse Crabtree needed to indulge his talent for turning garden hoses, shower curtains and the like into ready-to-wear ensembles. Crabtree didn't simply design costumes; he engineered his exotic hot-glue confections with a dexterity and wit that might elicit envious shivers from Disney's Imagineers.

Briskly directed by Waldrop, the show embraces the idea that life is either a cabaret or a costume ball, in which passion and talent count as co-equals. Not coincidentally, several skits recycle classic inside-theater jokes. One recurring gag involves Freeman doing some vintage prima donna shtick as he has to contend with a succession of outlandish get-ups (mermaid, Statue of Liberty, etc.) while all hell is breaking loose ``backstage.''

Another well-realized number transports us to the Melody Barn theater, a hapless Midwestern summer stock outfit whose coming attractions include an evening of Frank Loesser wartime songs titled ``Brutally Frank.

The cleverly metaphorical ``Not All Man'' has Pevsner outfitted as a centaur, drifting through a men's locker room wondering why the other guys won't accept him. There's also a hilarious, if faintly musty torch song trilogy in which a tuxedoed Bullock pays gushing tribute to the men of his dreams: Newt Gingrich, Strom Thurmond and Rush Limbaugh.

Other skits fall flat. ``Hawaiian Wedding Day'' doesn't get much beyond its setup, and the ``Dreamgirls'' spoof ``Shaft of Love'' is both obvious and dated. But all is forgiven when Hammond, perhaps the troupe's most versatile performer, throws his roly-poly all into the Mae West homage ``Bigger Is Better.''

Like some embroidered pillow of Auntie Mame's, these kinds of gay encodings have begun to look somewhat old-fashioned. There's a poignantly passe aspect to much of this material, whose tone of knowing innocence might've been bottled during the era before AIDS and the Moral Majority.

Yet, guided by Crabtree's energetic goodwill, the show must and does go on. The first act even ends with a rousing ``Patriotic Finale'' in which Hammond gets to show off his formidable baton-twirling skills while the rest of the cast insists that ``you can't take the 10 percent out of Tennessee'' and ``you can't take the sissy out of Mississippi.''

Without us, Crabtree seems to say, not only would you be stuck watching Monty Hall on television, you'd have to figure out how to dress him.

THE FACTS

What: ``Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly.''

Where: Coronet Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 7 and 10 p.m. Fridays; 5 and 9 p.m. Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. Runs indefinitely.

Tickets: $27.50 to $47.50. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: In ``Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly,'' Christopher Carothers, left, and Loren Freeman don costumes designed by the show's late namesake.