INTOXICATING SONDHEIM; BURNETT AND CO. MAKE `PUTTING IT TOGETHER' SING.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Theater Critic

``I'll drink to that!'' sings Carol Burnett, defiantly slugging down another highball as she makes her way through Stephen Sondheim's sarcastic homage to society women, ``The Ladies Who Lunch.''

It's getting late at a posh Manhattan cocktail party, and Burnett's character, a hostess with the mostest, is reflecting on a lifetime's worth of betrayals and disappointments.

Though Burnett's drop-dead glances and drolly acid inflections are a hoot, there's no denying the heartache behind them. The bitterness ringing through her voice could practically shatter the windows of the fashionable condo that Burnett's Amy keeps with her faithless husband, Charles (John McCook).

So it goes in ``Putting It Together,'' the exquisitely nuanced, splendidly performed all-Sondheim revue that opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum. Taking maximum advantage of the intimate venue, director Eric D. Schaeffer and an excellent five-member ensemble have fashioned a memorable, thoroughly grown-up entertainment.

But beware: This inebriating blend of ultra-literate lyrics and upper-middle-class romantic confession is a martini spiked with hemlock. Caroming between hope and disillusionment, youthful anticipation and later-life cynicism, the 34 musical vignettes just barely manage to salvage a satisfyingly up-tempo ending.

You know you're in good hands from the opening ensemble numbers, ``Putting It Together'' (from ``Sunday in the Park With George'') and the ironically titled ``Rich and Happy'' (from ``Merrily We Roll Along''). Snappily staged by Bob Avian, this deceptively jaunty lead-in introduces us to two mirror-image couples: the older, superficially enviable Amy and Charles, and the young, optimistic yet still noncommittal Barry (John Barrowman) and Julie (Susan Egan).

The odd man out, known as the Observer (Bronson Pinchot), functions variously as a butler, party guest and behind-the-scenes puppet master, introducing the vignettes with silent-film title pronouncements like ``Seduction,'' ``Flirtation,'' ``Desperation'' and so on.

That's about it for a setup, and with a cast and material this polished, it's all you need. For the next two hours there'll be no escaping Sondheim's pointedly insightful repartee, or the claustrophobic, trompe l'oeil perspectives of Bob Crowley's brilliant set, a cluster of stacked, walk-in cubicles framed by a horizontal Manhattan skyline.

While the entire ensemble sparkles, Burnett is deservedly its brightest star, with the supple, resourceful Pinchot a close second. Burnett's comic timing is so perfect here, you suspect she must've been an Olympic stopwatch in a previous life. Mastering Sondheim's tricky internal rhymes and breakneck tempo shifts, she pulls off such impossible numbers as the breathless ``Not Getting Married Today'' with aplomb.

She brings equally impressive emotional control to the wrenching ``Could I Leave You?'' ``Like It Was'' and ``Every Day a Little Death,'' her devastating duet with Egan.

In the ingenue role, Egan more than holds her own against her feminine rival, brandishing her vocal claws in ``There's Always a Woman,'' and innocently exulting in the consumer excesses of ``More.''

Barrowman swings easily from swaggering to vulnerable, unleashing his fine tenor on ``Pretty Women'' and ``Marry Me a Little.'' And McCook, a latecomer to the cast, finds a gruff, stirring regretfulness in ``The Road You Didn't Take.''

Even without the editorial commentary of Wendall K. Harrington's crafty rear-screen projections (exclamation points, ampersands), Schaeffer's direction makes us feel we're reading the innermost thoughts of a composer whose works need no subtext. ``Art isn't easy,'' says ``Putting It Together.'' But in this case, it's well worth the effort.

THE FACTS

What: ``Putting It Together.''

Where: Mark Taper Forum at the Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown.

When: Through Dec. 6. Performances at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Added performance 8 p.m. Nov. 23; no performance Nov. 26.

Tickets: $38 to $47. Call [phone].

Our rating: Four Stars.

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Photo

PHOTO Carol Burnett does a different kind of ear-tugging in her duet with Susan Egan, ``Every Day a Little Death.''

Tina Gerson/Daily News