GOOD 'FELLA' AN INTOXICATING ROMANCE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

After a recent spate of big-budget new musicals that have drowned us in visual and emotional bloat, what a relief it is to see the partially staged Reprise! series do what it does best with a sweet old chestnut like Frank Loesser's ``The Most Happy Fella.''

Leave aside the fancy costumes or stagy gimmickry, the shows selling their messages with every new scene. Give me instead ``Fella's'' rendition of ``Song of a Summer Night'' where a character named Doc (played by Sean Smith) leads a not-so-big chorus in pitch-perfect melody. And give me that melodic consistency whenever Peter Matz's band swings into action.

``Fella'' - like the beefy, middle-age vineyard owner who is its title character - will never be much to look at. Jeans, understated outdoor dresses of the '50s and plaid shirts are the costume of choice. Some of the scenery in the Golden Gate Restaurant actually looks like it was recycled from the Continental Congress of Reprise's last effort: ``1776.'' The ubiquitous Kay Cole - without whom, apparently, no L.A. musical of any heft can have choreography - serves up some dreamy dance steps when the young people are required to get frisky.

Arthur Allan Seidelman's staging isn't especially daring or inventive, nor does it need to be. When working with a Loesser score with songs like ``Big D,'' ``Don't Cry'' and ``Standing on the Corner,'' a director needs the good sense to let his performers get out of the music's way. Thanks to Matz's consistently excellent work, musical delivery is seldom a problem. The most memorable Reprise! shows are all about the songs anyway.

With ``Fella,'' the ante is upped because Loesser's nearly sung-through score veers close to the area code of operetta. Fortunately, if there's an average voice in the company, it didn't make itself heard opening night. Opera super-baritone Rodney Gilfry lends his considerable pipes to a supporting role while leading couple George Ball and Anastasia Barzee are dynamite, a veritable lesson in vocal chops and stage chemistry.

That is to say they end up with chemistry. Tony (Ball), the Italy-born owner of a Napa vineyard, tumbles head over tail at the first glance of attractive working-class waitress Rosabella (Barzee). Instead of a tip, he leaves her an amethyst tie pin. A courtship by mail ensues. Tony, salt of the earth and utterly beloved by his workers, becomes the envy of pretty much all of Napa county.

Rosabella eventually accepts Tony's marriage proposal, but with the wedding day approaching, our most happy hero listens too closely to the asp-ish whisperings of his sister, Marie (Eileen Barnett with an accent suggesting that either she or Tony was adopted). Convinced that a peach like Rosabella wouldn't want an older, not-so-bright Italian for a hubby, Tony sends a picture of his hunky younger foreman, Joe (Gilfry). Arriving for her wedding, Rosabella makes a hasty and unkind judgment of Tony, goes through with the ceremony anyway and then forms an alliance she'll live to regret. The pair's love will deepen in the second act if fate doesn't slap its messy paws on everything.

There's your plot. The story's twists and turns are predictable and the only side plot of note features a comic-tinged romance between Rosabella's waitress chum Cleo (Jennifer Leigh Warren, perkily over the top) and too-nice cowboy Herman (Kevin Earley).

Seidelman lets the action unfold leisurely - the play feels like an extended summer fling. People sing to each other, not only because Loesser makes them, but because that's just kind of ``Fella's'' sensibility. The look on Barzee's face is priceless as she is being serenaded with ``Benvenuta'' by a trio of ranch hands. That same threesome (R.F. Daley, Stephen Reed and Daniel Guzman) gets positively loopy during two food-flinging renditions of ``Abondanza.''

Barzee sings beautifully and delivers several touching scenes, bringing Rosabella gradually to some important realizations. Ball, a golden-voiced pro himself, doesn't turn Tony into a buffoon or a platinum-hearted martyr. In his hands, the character is a bit gruff, a little lonely and absolutely besotted by that lady in his life. With little else to divert his plot, Loesser gives the pair a lot of second-act stage time together to sing passion-choked duets (``My Heart Is So Full of You'') and playful songs (``Happy to Make Your Acquaintance''). Here are two performances to give May/December romances a very good name, indeed.

Gilfry, the production's other marquee name, certainly looks like a vineyard foreman, and local opera buffs should get a boot out of seeing him in denim and pink plaid before he returns to the wigs and wardrobe of ``The Merry Widow.'' It's a little disconcerting initially to hear that voice come out of that character, but Gilfry pulls it off. He's got an easy charm.

So, for that matter, has Seidelman's production. A most happy evening it is.

``THE MOST HAPPY FELLA''

Where: Freud Playhouse, McGowan Hall, UCLA.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through Nov. 18.

Tickets: $55 to $60. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three and one half stars