NEW 'PAINT YOUR WAGON' NOT TOTALLY GOLDEN.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

SCORE: still distinctly hummable. Say what you will about Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, they knew the craft of show-tunemanship.

Production: smooth and deftly executed. Director Gil Cates may have never helmed a musical, but you wouldn't know it from the goings-on at the Brentwood Theatre, where his revival of Lerner and Loewe's ``Paint Your Wagon'' showcases plenty of solid performances and a firm historical perspective.

Book: updated, yes, but little improved, suggesting that this ``Wagon'' doesn't just need a new coat of paint but a complete overhaul. Or, better yet, concertized stagings.

Few remember the musical in its original form (which differs substantially from the 1969 movie) because nobody performs ``Paint Your Wagon.'' For this new adaptation, it has fallen to David Rambo, a smart, literate musical-theater aficionado, to mine the gold of Lerner's original book. It's a losing proposition. The contemporary references (touching the Iraq invasion and, honest to Pete, ``garment malfunctions'') are jarring. The characters are stick figures - and plot-wise, the evening's 50-minute second act is god awful.

That second act, however, also contains the song ``They Call the Wind Maria,'' a sunset-drenched, 11 o'clock little number sublimely led by David Jennings and Robert Alan Clink playing a couple of prospectors headed for a newly discovered claim in the Sierras. Time may be a wastin', but it's a mighty good thing they decide to get one more number out before they hit the trail.

But let's back up. In a miner's camp outside Sacramento in 1852, widowed prospector Ben Rumson (played by Tom Wilson) and his tomboyish 16-year-old daughter, Jennifer (Jessica Rush) find gold, stake a claim and establish Rumson Town. While Ben's partner Bull Bullnack (Rob Kahn) lusts after Jennifer, she is falling - clandestinely - for a Mexican prospector, Julio Valveras (Alex Mendoza), who is trying to work an adjacent claim just long enough to finance a relocation down south to a place called Palos Verdes.

As Rumson Town thrives, fellow miner Jake Wippany (Clink) decides to build a dance hall and bring some women to the otherwise crinoline- deprived town. Arriving on that stagecoach, in addition to some frisky fandango dancers, is one Lily Smith (Sharon Lawrence), a down- at-the-heels actress who quotes a lot of Shakespeare. Ben falls for and marries her in a single scene.

Wilson's bearish charm and Rush's spitfire spunk blend easily. Dad and daughter may share the roaming spirit (his oft-repeated anthem is ``Wand'rin Star''), but she's smarter and more progressive than he is. Mendoza has handsome leading-man appeal. Lawrence, saddled with a silly role, keeps the laughs coming.

The technical side is where Cates and lighting/set designer Daniel Ionazzi have struck it rich. A pair of cardboard cutout trees and a skyline backdrop serve as projection screens for Gold Rush-era photography. The production may hit its themes a bit bluntly with those images of city skylines and rocket launches (progress, remember), but the orange and gold-brown hues of Ionazzi's landscape are warm and lush.

``Paint Your Wagon'' looks and sounds great. But even with a spruced-up book, there's too much story flotsam to overcome.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

PAINT YOUR WAGON - Three stars

Where: Brentwood Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Building 211, Brentwood.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Jan 9.

Tickets: $42 to $64. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Enjoyable production of a revised but not improved old chestnut.