Don't worry about the plot - it's about the songs.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

ALL'S WELL that ends well easily sums up the tomfoolery in the 1924 George Gershwin musical "Lady, Be Good." As hokey plots go, this one by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson is a dilly.

When an orphaned brother and sister, Dick and Susie Trevor, get evicted from their apartment, Dick runs off to seek help while Susie is left on the street, where she meets a dashing young hobo. Naturally, the two immediately fall deeply in love, then go their separate ways.

Dick returns with a scheme. He insists that they go to socialite Josephine Vanderwater's party, where they can scam some food and he can rendezvous with his true love, Shirley, whom he cannot marry because he has no money.

Little does Dick suspect that the cunning Josephine, who secretly loves him, was the one who got them evicted, in hopes that if he were pinched financially, he would ask to marry her.

Still with us? The plot thickens. Dick and Susie's smarmy lawyer, Watty, intends to use the late Jack Robinson's fortune to romance Josephine and get his grubby hands on her money. To do that, he sweet-talks Susie into pretending to be Robinson's Spanish wife. But the gambit crumbles when the "dead" man suddenly appears - and turns out to be the hobo Susie fell in love with at the beginning.

In the end, everybody marries the right person and lives happily ever after.

Jack Watson, who is directing this doozy for the Oregon Festival of American Music and its American Music Institute's Northwest Academy of Musical Theater, says "Lady, Be Good" is "typical of the early '20s, when they went, `We've got a lot of songs. Let's see if we can make up a story to contain them.' '

For this musical, George and Ira Gershwin penned two tunes that would become all-time classics - "Oh, Lady, Be Good" and "Fascinating Rhythm."

Watson says the title song, "coming late in the show, makes almost no sense at all." But he insists "it is still one great song."

And there also are a number of songs - notably "The Half of It, Dearie, Blues" and "Little Jazz Bird" - that Watson says are "wonderful. I sing them all day long every day. They're about to drive me crazy, because I can't get them out of my head."

"Lady, Be Good" is typical of Broadway fare in the 1920s, when theater was a good place to forget your troubles and have a good time.

"Lady, Be Good" was essentially a showcase for Fred and Adele Astaire. Watson is staging it with teen-agers, ranging in age from 14 to 17. Most attend high school in the Eugene-Springfield area. All are taking part in the OFAM summer theater camp, learning the show as an example of an extinct form of musical theater.

Songs in later musicals advanced the story line and revealed aspects of character, but songs in most 1920s musicals had little or no relationship to the plot. In fact, sometimes songs were performed by singers whose only duty was to sing and leave. Vaudeville expert Ian Whitcomb, one of this year's OFAM headliners, will play one of those roles, as Jeff White.

Another OFAM headliner, jazz adviser/pianist Dick Hyman, also will take part in the show but as an entre'act entertainer, playing popular music of the day under the name Knuckles O'Toole (one he has used for recordings).

Central to the cast are Dick and Susie Trevor, played by Andy Mosman and Amy Preitauer.

Other characters are Jack Robinson (Adam Vandehey), Josephine Vanderwater (Samantha Cairns), Daisy Parker (Steffi Garrard), Bertie Bassett (Daniel Poppe), Watty Watkins (Devin Driscoll), Shirley Vernon (Mimi Kater), Manuel Estrada (Michael Knackstedt) and Rufus Parke (Nicholas Weldon).

Also involved are Ruth Ames, Anne-Allegra Bennett (dance captain), Sheena Burke, Katie Cadwalader, Victoriana Garibay, Mackenzie Jahnke, Amber Sarno, Laura Swanson, Amy Wynkoop, Palmer Auty, Christopher Cooper, Steven Cooper, Jed Higgins, Alex Holmes and Brett Mustard.

Because the show evolves out of a theater camp that began only on July 14, Watson is racing to put the show together. Choreographer Reggie Bardach has simplified the choreography. Vicki Brabham has assembled a 12-piece pit band in which student players sit next to professionals. Mary Mikkelsen has dressed the actors in 1920s costumes.

"We're having a lot of fun doing it," says Watson, an associate professor of theater at the University of Oregon.

"The music is delightful. The story is thin, but the characters are actable and credible. In fact, it's fun helping these kids make them real people out of what could be very much cardboard figures. You'll be seeing a lot of these kids in the grown-up musical world real soon."

LADY, BE GOOD

WHAT: George and Ira Gershwin's 1924 musical, performed by a teen-age cast from the American Music Institute's Northwest Academy of Musical Theater; directed by Jack Watson for the Oregon Festival of American Music

WHEN: 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and 2:30 p.m. Wednesday

WHERE: Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, Seventh and Willamette streets

HOW MUCH: $16 to $22, at the Hult Center box office (682-5000)

CAPTION(S):

Oregon Festival of American Music 2002 NICOLE DeVITO / The Register-Guard Andy Mosman is Dick Trevor to Amy Preitauer's Susie Trevor, orphaned siblings in "Lady, Be Good."