Harold Hill is a con artist, but he has nothing on the touring production of The Music Man at the Aronoff Center, which benefits from our longstanding affection for a great American musical.

        This Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati entry, continuing through July 2, is a re-envisioned rather than revived The Music Man. How much you enjoy it depends on whether you think the show needs to be rethought.

        For my money, all the massaging takes away rather than adds.

        The Music Man is, of course, Harold Hill (Gerritt Vandermeer), a silver-tongued, love 'em and leave 'em scoundrel who takes cash, thank you, for band instruments and uniforms and ducks out of town about the time folks realize that their boys can't play a note of music.

        Then on July 3, 1912, Harold gets off the train in River City, Iowa, and gets his foot caught in the door, thanks to Marian the Librarian (Carolann Sanita).

        Mr. Vandermeer and Ms. Sanita can sing, but he's no Harold and she's no Marian. There's no attraction between them. Worse, he doesn't have Harold's charismatic charm, and she doesn't have Marian's sweetly sexy vulnerability or her other complexities.

        And — horror! — Mr. Vandermeer delivers most of his character-defining, get-up-and-sing-to-the-skies “Trouble” sitting down.

        What's wrong with this Music Man? It's either awful direction by Ray Roderick or that the director hasn't seen the show lately.

        Part of the reason The Music Man has been beloved for almost half a century is because it's about more than Harold and Marian. It's about a town that suddenly remembers anticipation, hope and joy and comes to life. It is America as we want to believe it might have been. But nobody here in River City is real.

        The show is well-sung, and the young ensemble throw themselves into the dances, but too many of the performances are too big and better suited to vaudeville than musical theater.

        Mr. Roderick does everything but strew banana peels across the stage to reach for laughs. Humor never takes the place of a heart. As the mayor's wife Eulalie, Corey Elias milks laughs as if she and her cow are competing at a state fair. She loses, and so do we.

        Instead of spending $58 for an orchestra seat on a production that only goes through the motions, here's what I would do:

        Call the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music box office at 556-4183 and order a pair of tickets to Rodgers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse, playing next season.

        It's a grand show, and CCM delivers stellar professional work more consistently than Broadway in Cincinnati. If you haven't taken the opportunity to compare, do yourself that favor.

        If you just love singing along with The Music Man's endearing and engaging score — and who doesn't? — even with those CCM tickets, you'll have enough money left for the original cast CD featuring the unforgettable Robert Preston and Barbara Cook. Think about it.

        The Music Man, through July 2, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, Aronoff Center, 241-7469.

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