SPOOF DELIVERS A MUSICAL COMEUPPANCE.

Byline: - Evan Henerson

The evil landlord demands his rent from the comely ing(hrt)nue. The wise and seasoned older woman isn't helpful. The boyfriend steps in, at the 11:59th hour, offering to pay. Curtain.

Our scene is played and replayed in -- alternately -- a farm in a rural cornfield, a New York City apartment complex, a swank-ified manor, the Paris Opera House and a Chicago cabaret. The personalities vary considerably from scene to scene. As do the musical stylings. How would Rodgers and Hammerstein have handled the rent-lacking ing(hrt)nue's plight? Or Jerry Herman? Andrew Lloyd Webber?

Well, we certainly know how composer Eric Rockwell and lyricist Joanne Bogart would handle it: with a delightful, genre-skewering brio and a needle not afraid to draw satirical blood. Rockwell and Bogart's ``The Musical of Musicals: The Musical'' may be a bit too inside baseball to anyone who doesn't know ``Mame,'' ``Oklahoma!'' or ``Evita.'' Those in the know, however, should take to Pamela Hunt's production at the Colony Theatre like a tabby to catnip.

The types are very familiar, the sendup is decidedly affectionate, and the puns are to wince at. Most importantly, the work of Alli Mauzey, Bret Schindele, Mary Gordon Murray and pianist-performer Jeffrey Rockwell is skilled and seamless. ``I'd think this would be harder than doing the real thing,'' observed an audience member.

Damned straight it is.

Take Mauzey, who plays the ing(hrt)nue five different times. She gets to spoof Eva Peron, a second-banana love interest in a Jerry Herman (``Mame,'' ``Hello Dolly!'' ) star-a-palooza, a ``Chicago'' moll, Laurie of ``Oklahoma!'' and a confused and conflicted Stephen Sondheim miss. All of which Mauzey does with a sweet soprano, smart dancing and a great sense of comic timing.

Schindele, as her all-American-boy-ish savior (from scene to scene), does a mean cowboy enamored of corn, a callow New York songwriter, an imprisoned Kander and Ebb writer, and a Che Guevara-like commentator.

The Herman sendup is perhaps the evening's most devastating, with a scene-hogging Murray (as the Mame-Dollyish Auntie Abby) drinking in the applause merely for being an over-the-hill diva who was once a name. Lloyd Webber's bombast and tendency to steal music takes plenty of darts as well. (OK, so maybe Rockwell and Bogart aren't always so affectionate in their tribute.)

Heartening though it is to see an audience for show-spoofing fare like ``Urinetown'' and the ``Forbidden Broadway'' franchise, let's hope musicals like ``The Musical of Musicals'' stick. With most of the spoofed composers dead or seriously graying, you've got to wonder whether the next generation of theatergoers will continue to get the joke.

For now, at least, Hunt and the team are playing to a receptive audience. Deservedly so.

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL - Three and one half stars

Where: Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank.

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Nov. 19.

Tickets: $37 to $42. [phone]

In a nutshell: Sondheim, Lloyd Webber and all the rest get their lively -- and, in some cases, well-deserved -- musical comeuppance.