Drat! The Cat!

Ira Levin was a major player in the national culture with plays such as "No Time for Sergeants" and "Deathtrap" and novels like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives." His single stab at a musical, however, didn't fare so well. "Drat! The Cat!" closed on Broadway in 1965 after only 8 performances; its inexperienced producers apparently hadn't enough money to override the mixed notices. Opening Doors Theatre Company is giving this lighthearted romp about a lady jewel thief in 1890s Manhattan a look-see, using its "living cast album" format, meaning that the book is truncated but the score is not. The results may not reveal a neglected masterpiece, but there's plenty of craft, charm, and high spirits on hand.

Alice Van Guilder, a lovely rich girl, doesn't want to marry any of the stuffy upper-class twits being foisted upon her. To alleviate her boredom, she starts to steal diamonds from her parents' friends at social gatherings. Soon the Cat is the talk of the town. Unfortunately, the great detective Roger "Bulldog" Purefoy is on his deathbed. Unable to take up the challenge, he passes it to his son, Bob, a nebbishy beat cop. Bob meets Alice when he arrives at her parents' apartment asking for permission to station policemen in the crowd at their upcoming masquerade party. It's love at first sight for Bob, which Alice immediately recognizes as useful. It takes Bob until the end of Act 1 to figure out that Alice is the Cat. By then she's knocked him out and tied him up out of sight. Increasingly ridiculous complications ensue, until a delightfully improbable happy ending is imposed.

The original production had acres of choreography of the Cat in action, by the great Joe Layton, designed to show off dancing star Lesley Ann Warren. Those sequences are, by necessity, missing here, but director Jeremy Gold Kronenberg still finds the requisite style for this kind of show to fly. He's aided by two terrific young actors as his romantic leads. Mark Emerson, fresh off his fine work in September in "A Home Across the Ocean," delivers the naive Bob with masterful comic understatement. His rendition of the show's one hit song, "She Touched Me," replaces its somewhat goopy blather (at least when sung out of context) with an endearingly loopy, wide-eyed wonder. Emily Jenda, a non-Equity performer, is quite simply the real deal, an absolutely enchanting Alice. She knows exactly what to do with the twinkling wit in Levin's work, bursts with intelligence, and sings like a dream. Emerson and Jenda play off each other beautifully. They are reason enough to see the show.

Levin doesn't do as well with his supporting characters. Nevertheless, Danny Blaylock scores in delivering Bulldog's deathbed song "My Son, Uphold the Law," and Nick Reynolds and Edward Juvier make an impression as two bumbling policemen, particularly leading the talented company in snazzy numbers like "A Pox Upon the Traitor's Brow" and "Today Is a Day for a Band to Play." In that they are helped by Christine Schwalenberg's resourceful and funny choreography, which makes great use of the venue's tiny stage. I do have one cavil: Richard Rice Alan and Debra Thaïs Evans, as Alice's parents, are playing too broadly to land much of the musical's sly humor.

Though Levin shows a surprising facility for writing lyrics, and Milton Schafer's pastiche tunes are never less than enjoyable under Ted Kociolek's confident music direction, I wouldn't call this a first-rate score. And there's an undeniable thinness to the proceedings that's probably what doomed the show the first time. That said, the many pleasures of "Drat! The Cat!" are getting their due at the Duplex.

Presented by Opening Doors Theatre Company at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre, 61 Christopher St., NYC. Nov. 8–12. Mon., Tue., Thu., and Fri., 7 p.m. (800) 838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com.