Classic Stage Company makes a valiant effort to revive a little-known Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

First seen on Broadway in 1947, Allegro was the third theatrical collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Allegro didn’t enjoy the runaway success of Oklahoma! or the unanimous critical acclaim of Carousel, and has since languished in relative obscurity. Die-hard fans will claim that this epic coming-of-age tale (which borrows more than a few pages from German playwright/director Bertolt Brecht) was ahead of its time, an underappreciated gem just waiting to take its position in the pantheon of great musicals. Yet in a new revival at Classic Stage Company, it’s hard to see Allegro as anything but dated. This is especially apparent under the direction of John Doyle, whose actor-as-musician stagings (like the brilliant 2005 Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd) regularly garner fresh and exciting insights from older works. (Who could forget Patti LuPone’s tuba-playing Mrs. Lovett?) Not so with Allegro, suggesting that stripped-down to its essentials, there’s just not much to draw on from Hammerstein’s shallow book. The story charts the path of Dr. Joseph Taylor Jr. (Claybourne Elder) from birth to midlife crisis. The costumes and actors never change in this bildungsroman-like story, meaning we have to endure the always-awkward stage conceit of a grown man playing a baby. With the help of a meddlesome Greek chorus, this infant in suspenders and argyle socks meets his dad (Malcolm Gets), mom (Jessica Tyler Wright), and grandma (Alma Cuervo). Joe wants to be a small-town doctor, just like dad, but his girlfriend, Jenny (Elizabeth A. Davis), has other plans. When girlfriend becomes wife, she pressures Joe to take a high-paying job in Chicago catering to rich hypochondriacs. Spiritually floundering in material success, Joe wonders how his life so radically diverged from his childhood aspirations.