IS THERE ANYTHING ALEXANDER CAN'T DO?; `SEINFELD' STAR FINDS TIME FOR MUSICAL, TV ADS - AND DON'T FORGET NEW FILM.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

The state of the American musical has Jason Alexander very upset.

Well, not exactly. It has Buzz Hauser - the angst-ridden character Alexander plays in the new feature film ``Love! Valour! Compassion!'' - very upset.

Buzz is one of those Broadway fanatics who can warble Ethel Merman's entire oeuvre from memory. He's the second coming of Judy Garland, trapped in the body of a pudgy, middle-age gay New Yorker. And he's convinced that Western culture hath no greater foe than Madonna - ``Evita'' notwithstanding.

And Alexander? He, of course, is the peerlessly neurotic spirit behind George Costanza, token schlemiel of NBC's ``Seinfeld.'' Pretzel purveyor in TV ads. Family man. Father of two. Tony Award winner.

Yet scarcely less a Broadway maven than Buzz.

``He (Buzz) is into the Mary Martin/Ethel Merman era, and my familiarity really starts in the '60s and '70s,'' says Alexander, 37, his choirboy countenance edging into a grin. ``But certainly we could both probably embarrass ourselves on `Jeopardy!' If there were a category on Broadway cast albums, we'd both appear far too smart.''

Which makes Alexander a pretty smart choice to help christen ``Reprise!'' the new series of staged Broadway concert musicals that opened Wednesday night at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. Performances continue through Sunday.

In a bow to the Buzz Hausers of the world, ``Reprise!'' is dedicated to the proposition that Broadway still can write 'em - or at least revive 'em - like it used to. Aimed at infusing neglected classics with new juice, the series is opening with ``Promises, Promises,'' a martini-suave 1968 comedy with a Burt Bacharach/Hal David score, the duo's first and only Broadway venture. Neil Simon adapted the gag-filled book from Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning 1960 screen comedy ``The Apartment.''

Staged with minimal sets, costumes and choreography, but maximum panache, it stars Alexander as Chuck Baxter, a corporate peon eager to advance his career by lending his bachelor digs to his bosses for their extramarital trysts.

If that premise seems outrageously passe, well, that's sort of the point. ``Reprise!'' producer Marcia Seligson says the series gives audiences a fresh look at vintage musicals generally deemed too dated, too costly or too cumbersome to restage.

``I'm really committed to creating an ongoing home for musical theater in Los Angeles,'' Seligson said recently. ``The largest mission of this company is to keep the heritage of our great American art form going and not disappear.''

How do you manage that in a town that prefers its song and dance on celluloid?

In a phrase, star power. Like its highly successful Manhattan counterpart, the 4-year-old ``Encores'' series, ``Reprise!'' has stocked up on crossover talent from film and television. Jean Smart (``Designing Women'') and Alan Rachins (``L.A. Law'') will join Alexander on stage in ``Promises, Promises.'' Stuart Ross, creator of the throwback homage to '50s guy groups, ``Forever Plaid,'' will direct.

The second production, ``Finian's Rainbow'' (Sept. 24-28), will team Keith Carradine and Joel Grey, both experienced in stage and screen, with singer/actress Andrea Marcovicci. For the season finale, ``Wonderful Town'' (Nov. 19-23), Tyne Daly will tackle the part of a small-town Ohio gal who takes a deep bite out of the Big Apple.

Somewhere between a staged reading and a full-blown production, the shows will emphasize score and sentiment over self-propelled chandeliers and other razzle-dazzle. Actors will perform with scripts in hand, and most shows will include only one or two choreographed dance numbers.

``It's a strange hybrid,'' Alexander concedes. ``I think it may take the audience a little bit of a while to adjust.''

Interviewed last week, at the height of the ``Seinfeld'' salary brouhaha, Alexander showed no obvious signs of wear and tear. Genial and relaxed, he shrugged his shoulders and gave a ``who knows?'' look when asked how negotiations were going between NBC and its top-rated sitcom's three supporting players: Alexander, Michael Richards and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

(Last Saturday, NBC announced it had reached a settlement with the trio, who'd been asking for $1 million per episode apiece - an unprecedented figure for a co-starring role. The New York Daily News reported the three would receive $600,000 per episode, a measure of their perceived contribution to the show's phenomenal success.)

While the media has been treating the ``Seinfeld'' intrigue as if it were the Yalta Conference, Alexander has been quietly getting on with his career.

``Love! Valour! Compassion!'' opens today in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, where it has been much anticipated by those cities' large gay communities. Adapted by Terrence McNally from his hit Broadway play, it concerns a group of seven gay New York men who spend three summer weekends bonding, bathing and bellyaching at a picturesque farmhouse.

Though ``L'' is an ensemble piece, Alexander clearly landed one of the juiciest roles: the high-strung, diva-ish Buzz, played on Broadway by Nathan Lane.

``I thought it was very noble - that's the wrong word - but noble of them to cast an actor who isn't a gay actor in the role,'' Alexander says. ``It's a piece that's very important in the gay community. I didn't want to muck it up.''

Though the film marks his first public appearance wearing nothing but an apron, high heels and a sun hat, he insists that the role didn't require any special courage.

``People say to me, `Oh, weren't you brave to do this?' I took a good part in a good film! What's brave about that?!''

Though it may surprise ``Seinfeld'' groupies, Alexander knows his way around the floorboards as well as the backlots.

An older sister got him hooked on show tunes at a tender age. By the time he was 5, he says, ``I was obnoxiously singing the score from `Man of La Mancha.' ''

At 19, he broke through on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's ``Merrily We Roll Along,'' followed by Neil Simon's ``Broadway Bound'' and the Kander and Ebb musical ``The Rink'' opposite Chita Rivera and Liza Minnelli. His track record includes a Tony Award for Best Actor in the 1989 retrospective ``Jerome Robbins' Broadway,'' and a co-starring role in ABC's 1995 remake of ``Bye Bye Birdie'' opposite Daly and Vanessa Williams.

``I get long-run-itis when I do Broadway, after about six months,'' he admits, ``but when you're in a musical, and there's a great score ...''

The dreamy glint in his eye makes it needless to finish the thought.

Alexander believes that Broadway and Hollywood should do more of these cross-pollinations. He'd like to see more sitcom actors shake a leg now and then, and more Broadway stars turning up in prime time.

``One of the things I'm dedicated to is getting live-action musicals back onto the screen. But you're limited by budget, by the television format where every six minutes there's a commercial. I would have trouble watching musicals under those conditions.''

Although ``Promises'' ran for 1,281 Broadway performances and spun off the Top 10 hit ``I'll Never Fall in Love Again,'' it spawned few imitations. By the late-'60s, Broadway already was flirting with a harder-edged, heavily amplified sound. The smooth comic assurance of ``Promises'' soon was blown aside by the aggressive wailings of ``Hair'' and ``Jesus Christ Superstar.''

Even so, ``Promises'' pointed to a newer, hipper direction for the American musical, away from the period pageantry of, say, ``Camelot'' and ``Hello, Dolly!'' toward a modern, urban sensibility. Its choreographer, Michael Bennett, later worked on Stephen Sondheim's first ``concept'' musicals, ``Company'' and ``Follies,'' before helping to create ``A Chorus Line.'' The sound of those shows owes a debt to ``Promises,'' says Peter Matz, the series' estimable music director.

``It was the first musical to really try to exploit what was the pop genre of the time,'' he says. ``Burt didn't really write rock music, but the style of the way the music was presented was very clever, with a lot of very tricky rhythms and interesting harmonies.''

Which leaves only one question: Why has it taken so long for it to return?

Not even one of its authors can say for sure.

``It's hard to know why,'' Hal David admits. ``It was just done in New York at the `Encores' series with Martin Short and Christine Baranski. And I saw it in London last year at an off-West End production, a small production which was very charming. So at this point it seems to be very much alive.''

Buzz Hauser, wherever he is, must be smiling.

THE FACTS

What: ``Promises, Promises.''

Where: Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, UCLA campus, Westwood.

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

Tickets: $35 to $40. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) ALEXANDER the GREAT

`Seinfeld' star now hitting stage and screen

(2) Jason Alexander gets comfortable during an interview at the Hotel Nikko. The ``Seinfeld'' star and Tony Award winner is doing a musical turn in a revival of ``Promises, Promises.''

Gus Ruelas/Daily News

(3) Alexander stars in ``Love! Valour! Compassion!'' as Broadway fanatic Buzz Hauser in apron, hat and little else. The film, based on a successful play, opens today.