WELL-SET COURSE FOR `SHOW BOAT' : THE FACTS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

The America in which Harold Prince's brilliant new revival of ``Show Boat'' unfolds is a nation on the verge of painful self-knowledge.

When the musical opens on a Mississippi River levee, circa 1890, the crowd that gathers around the Cotton Blossom is a raucous, plain-spoken bunch. They work hard, drink hard, play hard. When misery and hardship strike, they bear up uncomplainingly, especially the ex-slaves stuck at the bottom of the ladder.

Forty years later, when the Cotton Blossom's slumped and wrinkled crew reassemble for a final reckoning, their world is about to vanish along with them. Snazzy yellow jalopies have replaced horse-drawn carriages. The Charleston, not the waltz, is all the rage. Parochial rural society has given way to crowded urban alienation.

Fully human in their frailty and nobility, these characters can't escape their past, any more than their society can escape the loss of whatever remains of its innocence.

This unusually dark reading may not be exactly what composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II had in mind when they sat down to write their musical comedy masterpiece seven decades ago.

But as reimagined by director Harold Prince, and acted by as good a cast as anyone could hope for, the ``Show Boat'' that opened Sunday at the Ahmanson Theatre is a magnificently eloquent epic for the fast-closing 20th century.

It also is so skillfully trimmed and entertainingly designed that no one is likely to be put off by director Prince's sober subtextual reflections.

Arriving in Los Angeles after long stops in Toronto and on Broadway, the 3-year-old production works at a number of metaphorical levels. Prince and his team have pared away most of the weepy theatrics from Edna Ferber's 1926 novel, leaving a production that's as tightly structured as it is thematically yeasty. It also may be the first to give adequate voice to its secondary African-American characters, whose constant, wary presence never lets the audience forget the harsh environment in which the show takes place.

Yet the L.A. production's main advantage over previous versions lies in the superlative quality of its acting.

As Cap'n Andy Hawks, the Cotton Blossom's scrappy proprietor, Ned Beatty seizes hold of a pivotal role with all the ruddy-faced diplomacy and gruff pleading he can muster. He's a tough businessman with a heart of tapioca, which he has to be to stand up to his spouse, Parthy. Played by Cloris Leachman as a paragon of cranky decency, this Parthy breaks free of past characterizations as a comic shrew.

Equally crucial is the casting of Kevin Gray as Gaylord Ravenal, the dashing gambler who woos and weds Magnolia Hawks, the captain's feisty daughter (an excellent Teri Hansen). Having proven himself a master of sleazy charm as the Engineer in ``Miss Saigon,'' Gray brings just the right edge of lovesick vulnerability to the ne'er-do-well ladies' man. Gray's hair may be slicked with snake oil, but deep down his Ravenal, like most of the characters, is a hopeless romantic.

No less vital for its familiarity, Kern and Hammerstein's score charts the characters' reversals of fortune, which boil like treacherous riptides under the musical's surface charms. Chief among these are Susan Stroman's buoyant choreography, Eugene Lee's moodily beautiful sets, Richard Pilbrow's lighting and Florence Klotz's rags-to-riches costumes.

The production brims with smart artistic choices that put fresh spins on aging material. Take the bluesy show-stopper ``Bill,'' which the banished, mixed-race Julie (Valarie Pettiford) sings just before hitting the skids in Chicago. By the time she finishes her exquisite lament, Pettiford has journeyed from self-mocking ruefulness to achingly tragic self-acceptance.

Or when Leachman's Parthy sings ``Why Do I Love You?'' (originally written as a chorus number) to her newborn granddaughter, then possessively withholds the baby from her errant father, leaving the audience literally unsure whether to cry or laugh.

Presiding over the entire spectacle - the plot-condensing dance montages, the freeze-frame human tableaux - Michel Bell's Joe provides ``Show Boat'' with its great basso profundo conscience. Eyes forward, knees bent, he seems to be steadying himself under a hundredweight of bricks as he delivers ``Ol' Man River.'' Even as the decades pile on, he takes a heroic stand against time.

The same could be said of this entire production.

What: ``Show Boat.''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays; through Feb. 23.

Tickets: $31.50 to $75. Call [phone].

Our rating: Four stars

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Photo

Photo: Cloris Leachman and Ned Beatty star in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's ``Show Boat.''