robberbridegroomdrunk Musicals. Not typically my thing. Yes, I’d die to see The Book of Mormon. The film version of Chicago is pretty impressive. All That Jazz is amazing. But I’m meh on Grease and Fiddler on the Roof. I’d rather watch football than Sunday in the Park with George. And Andrew Lloyd Webber can go hang.

So when I saw that International City Theatre were closing their 2011 season with The Robber Bridegroom, I wasn’t feeling like this was one of the banner days in my life as a theatre critic.

But sometimes it’s nice to be wrong.

Look, Alfred Uhry’s The Robber Bridegroom (based on a Eudora Welty novella about which I know nothing, except that it’s based on a Brothers Grimm story that’s darker and less involved than the musical) is trite by design. If you’re looking for a dram of substance, take a pass on this one.

Triteness, though, can incorporate cleverness. And even the groundlingsest level of humor sometimes can amuse those who generally prefer their laughs a little more highbrow. It’s all in the execution. Uhry has given theatre companies something to work with here. And let me tell you, ICT works it.

The story of “the Robber Bridegroom” is framed with a bit of that cleverness, as the show’s opening number, “Shoot the Owl,” introduces us to a group of settler descendents who are going to tell (and act out) the tale of the Robber Bridegroom, which happened “Once Upon the Natchez Trace.” Thusly is the audience treated to the intentionally far-fetched story of gentleman robber Jamie Lockhart (Chad Doreck) and his efforts to stylishly steal the fortunes of wealthy planter Clemment Musgrove (Michael Stone Forrest) and the heart/”honor” of his daughter Rosamund (Jamison Lingle).

To do so, Lockhart must negotiate the perils of Musgrove’s wife Salome (Sue Goodman) and Brothers Big and Little Harp (Tyler Ledon and Michael Uribes), the former of whom is only a severed head.

From even before the start of the show itself, the ICT audience gets to see that this cast, as well as the direction/choreography of Todd Nielsen, is absolutely first-rate, with characters milling about the theatre familiarizing us with their personalities, as well as setting us up for the creative misdirection that will play prominently in how smoothly the cast negotiates various logistical elements to move the story forward in the delightfully seamless way they do.

As soon as the show proper is underway, the tightness of all elements is on display, beginning with something as simple and effective as the way in which the entire cast bangs on Stephen Gifford’s highly functional wooden stage to simulate the buffalo and Native Americans who inhabited the Natchez Trace before the settlers came.

Musically, The Robber Bridegroom is, well, a musical in the traditional sense—and as such, not all of its music is music to my ear. I don’t know if I enjoyed “Shoot the Owl” as much as I did simply because the entire cast did so well filling the stage with sharp energy, but the tortuous progression that is much of “Once Upon the Natchez Trace” lacked any aesthetic cogency that matters to me. Fortunately, this was for me the most insufferable turn in Robert Waldman’s score, and several numbers worked for me quite nicely—some because they’re pretty damn amusing, some because they resemble genuine pop songs (one even stealing the melody line of the B section of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”).

An example of both is the Harps’ “Two Heads Are Better Than One,” whose predictable humor is made pleasantly quaint by some laugh-out-loud choreography, and whose two-part harmony is delivered dead on by Ledon and Uribes.

In a lot of the music, Waldman has made the astutely pragmatic choice of finding a contextually credible way to have his lines repeated twice (call-and-response-like), making it all the easier for the audience to follow the exposition delivered therein.

Probably my favorite aspect of the music concerns “Ain’t Nothin’ Up,” which Rosamund sings as she wanders the indigo fields. It’s a soulful tune delivered nicely by Lingle—who elsewhere sounds like Deborah (née Debbie) Gibson, which sometimes works well (e.g., “Sleepy Man”), and sometimes less so. But where it absolutely kills is when it comes up later as she retells her forest outing. It’s a very South Park-type joke (and considering The Robber Bridegroom dates back to the mid ’70s and that Trey Parker & Matt Stone love musicals, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they took this page from the Uhry/Waldman book), and it’s hilarious, partly because Lingle sells it to perfection.

In fact, the entire cast sells everything to perfection. There’s a real joy in seeing a group of people come together and just knock it out of the park. The worst of the singing is serviceable, the best (of which there’s plenty) is quite impressive, and all, all of the physical—from the complex and multilayered blocking to the facial expressions of characters both at the center of the action and while playing audience to the tale being told (remember the aforementioned framing device?)—is simply stellar. I kept looking for gaffes, but even when they’d come (a rarity), they were turned to good use.

The cast is fab from Lockhart in his lead role to Tatian Mac as a crow of few words (though I guess for a crow she’s pretty verbose). In fact, the full company does wonders with the non-human, creating mise en scène from forest creatures to creaky hinges. And always that surprising physicality (of which Adam Wylie is a prime example). The entire cast move with dancerly sureness, hitting all their marks without ever seeming out of breath.

Really, I could give a damn about a musical like The Robber Bridegroom. And yet I enjoyed myself from start to finish. Go figure. I won’t go as far as to say that anything done well enough is worthy of one’s time and money (no doubt for most of there is plenty that falls outside the realm of what we will like). But in this instance, for this guy, this here is something to see.

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE • 300 E OCEAN BLVD • LONG BEACH 90802 • 562.436.4610 • ICTLONGBEACH.ORG • THURS-SAT 8PM, SUN 2PM • $37-$44 • THROUGH NOV 6