Old Musical in Manhattan

Sweethearts (book by Harry B. Smith & Fred De Gresac, with revisions by John Cecil Holm; music & lyrics by Victor Herbert & Robert B. Smith; produced by Paula Stone & Michael Sloane) emerges after 33 years as a vehicle--a sort of quaint old hearse--for Bobby Clark. It belongs to the Balkan Age of operetta, when princes wooed village maids who eventually turned out to be princesses in disguise, and the most personal and private crises were resolved in the village square.

Despite "book revisions," the colloquies and quips are plenty rusty. Nor do the

Victor Herbert tunes make up for the tara-diddles. The title song and I Might Be Your Once-in-a-While are familiar favorites, and a comic sextet, Pilgrims of Love, has been gagged up into a high spot of the show. Otherwise, the score is just about as faded as the book.

Fortunately, though he can't quite save the day, Cuckoo Clark notably brightens the evening. Hurling himself headlong into any role he can find a costume for --monk, chancellor, Foreign Legionnaire, laundress--Bobby leers at the actresses, spits on the plot, and keeps hurrying nowhere.

When he sings, he seems to introduce new notes into the scale. He heaves wash on to remote, high-slung clothes lines; he rushes on stage between the shafts of a cart and asks the audience if they have seen a horse go up the aisle. But there are dreary spells when the book is too much for him, and much drearier spells when he isn't even around.

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