Twist: An American Musical

This musical includes a stage full of precocious dancing youths crooning about food, a bewildered orphan boy who is put up for sale after he innocently asks for more gruel, and opportunistic villains who endanger the woebegone lad's life. Sound familiar? The new show is inspired by Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist," the same source material tapped for the beloved 1960s stage and screen tuner "Oliver!" In this radically re-imagined and socially conscious take on Dickens' tome, the titular orphan (now with a single moniker) is mulatto, and the setting is racially intolerant New Orleans of the 1920s.

A team of writers and director-choreographer Debbie Allen have created a rousing, tuneful, and handsomely mounted piece showing tremendous promise. Yet, the clumsy integration of William F. Brown and Tina Tippit's sometimes unwieldy book with a generally charming score (by composer-lyricist Tena Clark and co-composer Gary Prim) hampers this West Coast premiere rendition.

Allen's staging is greatly aided by a magnificent ensemble, headed by adorable and prodigiously talented young Alaman Diadhiou. He alternates with Coco Monroe in the role of Twist, a child who was abandoned at birth on the orphanage steps. The pint-sized hoofer Diadhiou oozes charisma from the get-go, and he dances up a storm, projecting a polish and confidence far beyond his years. He shares a delightful chemistry with sweet-voiced Tamyra Gray, as Twist's protector, Della, a variation on the character of saloon girl Nancy of the Dickens original.

Fagin, Dickens' ringleader of a gang of young pickpockets, here becomes Della's shady lover, Boston (the marvelous Matthew Johnson), a former vaudeville performer, now a bootlegger, who plans to sell Twist to the lad's uncle (Pat McRoberts), a Ku Klux Klan thug who aims to kill Twist and collect the inheritance of the youth's dead mother. The plot becomes increasingly cumbersome, and several songs, while enjoyable, interrupt the narrative flow. A prime example is a spooky dance-of-the-dead in the funeral parlor, which comes across as an uninspired imitation of the Tevye dream sequence in "Fiddler on the Roof." Nonetheless, Allen pulls off several dazzling production numbers, including a splendid Mardi Gras segment and high-kicking vaudevillian routines. The athletic chorus line of young orphans is terrific. Among other standouts in the spirited cast are Cleavant Derricks as the dastardly funeral parlor director, Cliff Bemis as the kindly lawyer who takes Twist in, and fleet-footed Jared Grimes as Twist's ill-fated father.

Presented by TAM Producing Partners at and with the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. June 26–July 17. Tue.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 4 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m. (Dark Tue., 8 p.m. July 5 & 12.) (626) 356-7529. www.pasadenaplayhouse.org.