'CONTACT' CONNECTS POWERFULLY.

Byline: - Evan Henerson

WHEN LIFE GETS trying, everyone needs a swinging diversion, an Italian restaurant daydream and an unattainable Girl in a Yellow Dress. Especially an unattainable Girl in a Yellow Dress.

For that matter, we could all use some more entertainment like Susan Stroman and John Weidman's ``Contact,'' back on tour and visiting the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza through this weekend.

Here again is a story told largely through movement: joyous, freeing, often quite sexy movement devised by director-choreographer Stroman before her far less exciting work on ``The Producers.''

It's an apples-and-cactus comparison to mention ``Contact'' in the same breath as Matthew Bourne's just-opened ``Play Without Words,'' which also uses dance and sensual movement as its storytelling engine. ``Contact,'' however, has a book writer: Weidman. And dialogue.

This being every bit a Stroman show, it can be no easy assignment to follow in the original director's footsteps. Fergus Logan, re-creating ``Contact's'' original direction, hews faithfully to the ``Contact'' that first came through L.A. in the summer of 2001. Those naughty aristocrats in Jean-Honore Fragonard's painting (of Part 1 ``Swinging'') are still having a high old time making mischief on a very durable swing. Candy Brown as a beaten-down Mafia wife is delightfully giddy and tragically heartbroken as her fantasy romp through the Italian restaurant (``Did You Move?'') comes to an end.

But it's pretty hard to break from ``Contact'' without bestowing the requisite gasps and plaudits on the adventures of Michael Wiley (James Blanshard), the desperate advertising executive who, unable to take his own life, ends up at an after-hours swing club. After watching a roomful of dexterous swingers, the nondancing Wiley encounters a yellow-dress-clad bombshell who likes to dance but who is very selective about her partners. She'll choose Wiley ... if he can get up the nerve to ask.

Allie Meixner, predictably, is breathtaking as the Girl. She's got a slow, pelvis-leading saunter, a smile that disarms that devastating head shake (the one that says, ``No, not you.''), and man, can she dance. She turns Blanshard's Wiley into an able partner - and consequently a much happier human being.

Ah, the joys of making contact - real and imagined.

CONTACT - Two and one half stars

Where: Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks.

When: 8 tonight, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Sunday.

Tickets: $39.50 to $48.50. [phone].

In a nutshell: Susan Stroman's frisky musical is back with a swinging vengeance.