Entertainment

NEW YORK – A Catered Affair is a little musical that modestly shrinks almost to invisibility.

Adapted from a 1950s movie, it tells the story of a young couple that wants to get married quietly. The mother, always a little remote from her daughter, takes it into her head to throw a lavish ceremony. The cabdriver father grows increasingly alarmed that the family's whole life savings is being thrown away "to feed strangers."

Harvey Fierstein's libretto amplifies the role of the live-in uncle – and throws in an anachronistic twist about this middle-aged man's decision to come out of the closet. Unsurprisingly, he plays the role himself in the Broadway production, reviewed Friday.

What really arouses interest in A Catered Affair, though, is that it's the first show by songwriter John Bucchino to reach the Great White Way. Mr. Bucchino writes quirky, lyrical tunes, often telling a story. For years, they turned up frequently on cabaret albums by musical-theater stars. Then one devoted entirely to his work, "Grateful," became a cult hit. Theatre Three did a superb 2004 revue based on Mr. Bucchino's work using that title.

John Doyle, the British director who mounted those actors-play-the-instruments revivals of Sweeney Todd and Company, staged A Catered Affair, and that may be one reason Mr. Bucchino's music has so little impact, at least on first hearing. He has the talented cast half-sing, half-speak the many narrative songs. Only a few stand out – a romantic waltz for the engaged couple and the father's angry self-justification, both late in the show.

It's great to see a musical so devoted to probing character, and performances so detailed and subtle. But finally it all seems so pale.

Mr. Fierstein at least makes an effort to really sing his numbers, rather than gargle them in his inimitable comic basso. Tom Wopat creates a character utterly unlike himself in the father, shriveled and sunken and staring at the ground. Leslie Kritzer colors in the slightly resentful daughter with many shades of emotion and sings gorgeously; as the fiancé, Matt Cavenaugh looks – and sings – like Clark Kent, only blander.

As the mother, Faith Prince gets big star treatment, well, as big as A Catered Affair dares to get. The character doesn't cut a very appealing figure, and Ms. Prince doesn't suggest any underlying warmth with which to empathize. The whole point of the show seems to be that she has withered because her husband has never expressed his affection for her. As a dramatic moral, "Remember to say, 'I Love You,' " seems rather thin.

This is a show that you hope will grow on you when you hear the songs a few more times or see a more engaging production. We'll wait and see.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St., New York. $29.50 to $119.50. 1-800-432-7250.

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