The final performances of the tour of Victor/Victoria

Summer in St. Louis generally means musical theater and particularly musical theater "lite" - great taste, less filling, no afterthought. Victor/Victoria - the 1996 Henry Mancini/Leslie Bricusse collaboration ending its national tour at the Fox this week - mostly fits that category. Oh, sure, there's a message about how love is a wonderful thing regardless of the mix of genders involved, but it's so immersed in a frothy mix of flashy production numbers and classic door-slamming farce that only a die-hard homophobe would find it offensive. In short, Victor/Victoria is so downright charming that I found myself enjoying it - mostly - despite its obvious flaws.

"Charming" is also a good way to describe pop music star Toni Tennille in the title role of Victoria Grant, the operatic contralto "down and out in Paris" in the 1930s. Her voice (at least on opening night) was too breathy to make the running gag about her glass-shattering high notes plausible, but she's such a delight to watch on stage that it doesn't matter much. Equally delightful is Jamie Ross as Toddy, the gay nightclub singer who befriends Victoria and encourages her to pass herself off as an exiled Polish count who is the world's greatest female impersonator. The late Robert Preston played that role in the 1982 film, and there's more than a dash of that same roguish charm in Ross.

The trio of lead roles is nicely rounded out by Dennis Cole as King Marchan, the Chicago gangster who finds himself attracted to Victor/Victoria, much to the consternation of his brassy blonde moll Norma Cassidy. Dana Lynn Mauro gives Norma all the Judy Holliday/Jean Hagen schtick the script obviously calls for and gets well-deserved applause for her production number in the second act, but frankly I'm bored with the stereotype of the bleached blonde with the Bronx accent and fractured English. It's a pity Blake Edwards - who adapted the book from his own screenplay - couldn't have come up with an interesting twist on this old standby the way he did with Marchan's bodyguard Mr. Bernstein (a.k.a. "Squash"). Convincingly played by A.J. Irvin, he's definitely NOT your standard Mafia torpedo.

In fact, it's Edwards' book that is the source of most of Victor/Victoria's flaws. It's just too lightweight to carry the show's two hour and forty minute running time. There's at least one ballad too many and one production number too many, and the first act tends to drag a bit as the plot mechanics are set up. Add to this the fact that the Mancini score doesn't quite rise to the level of Bricusse's witty lyrics, and you can understand why I started looking at my watch midway through the second act.

The bottom line on Victor/Victoria is that it's a pleasant, mostly entertaining musical farce with more than its share of hearty laughs once it gets off the ground. Whether it's worth a top ticket price of $43 or so is another question, since its competition this weekend includes Stages' much-praised Fiddler on the Roof, the Black Rep's exuberant Eubie!, and New Line's Into the Woods. The choice is yours, but if you want to try Victor/Victoria it runs through Sunday at the Fox. Call Metrotix at 534-1111 for ticket information.