STAGE REVIEW : A Self-Congratulatory MacLaine at the Pantages

Shirley MacLaine ended opening night of “Out There Tonight,” her revue at the Pantages Theatre, with this admonition to the audience: “When you go out there tonight, do something you’ve never had the guts to do before.”

Look who’s talking.

“Out There Tonight” is a stale slice of ham. It’s the sort of show that MacLaine has done, and done, and done. Angelenos saw large chunks of it at the Wilshire Theatre in 1984.

It must have taken guts to keep doing this show in the wake of a knee injury last spring. But that’s the only risk MacLaine has taken here. Though she sings a song in praise of going “Out on a Limb” (also the title of one of her books), this show is nowhere near the limb.

So much of it is a condensed version of MacLaine’s previous work that anyone who’s unfamiliar with her career is likely to be baffled. If you don’t already worship the ground MacLaine dances on, “Out There Tonight” is not likely to convert you.

The two best items here are Stephen Sondheim’s. MacLaine does a greatest-hits tour of the Mama Rose role from “Gypsy” (Sondheim wrote the lyrics), and she introduces Sondheim’s updated words to his “I’m Still Here.”

While the “Gypsy” medley is hardly “out on a limb,” at least it’s not something we associate with MacLaine. She does it with the requisite fire. But in this context, its primary effect is to make us wonder why MacLaine hasn’t done “Gypsy” itself. That would certainly be more interesting than another round of this revue.

Sondheim’s revised “I’m Still Here” is the cleverest example of self-congratulations in this extremely self-congratulatory show, but you need not buy tickets to “Out There Tonight” in order to hear it; MacLaine informs us that she also sings it in one of her upcoming movies.

At least no one can say MacLaine has made a self-congratulatory grand entrance. After the house lights go down, the stage is filled with the hubbub of sound checks and warm-up exercises by the crew, seven-person band and four-person chorus. Suddenly, MacLaine appears in the midst of it, dressed down. With a ragged voice, she sings her first version of the title song, “Out There Tonight,” in which she frets about her audience.

She predicts that in the middle of her biggest number, someone near the front of the audience will get up and leave, perhaps in response to nature’s call. Sure enough, this happened, in the middle of her Mama Rose routine, not far from where I was seated. Though unscripted (MacLaine gave no indication that she noticed), it was the funniest moment of the evening.

After her less-than-socko opening, MacLaine changes into glitzier outfits, and her voice gets stronger. But the self-absorption continues. Why is she here? “Lord help me, I love it,” she sings. She adores “Applause”--song cue, please. The first big dance number is “Clap Your Hands”--which refers not just to the rhythm of the song but also to her continued expectations from the audience.

MacLaine tells a few jokes and does a little comedy routine about the tabloids; the humor is on the level of an off night at “The Tonight Show,” except there’s no Johnny Carson to comment on how bad the material is. Buz Kohan Jr. wrote the script, as well as the lyrics for Larry Grossman’s songs.

From the 1984 show, MacLaine repeats her bit about her movie roles as hookers and adds a few lines from her recent “Steel Magnolias.” She reruns her 1984 tribute to choreographers, in which she dances “Sweet Georgia Brown” in the styles of Bob Fosse, Michael Kidd and this show’s Alan Johnson, but she adds an MTV bit, for which she dons a pink wig and black, chain-studded clothes. Cute.

She grimaced at one point during the Kidd number and pretended to stumble her way through the rest of it. Did she momentarily want us to worry that her knee had again given out? Or has her injury really limited her ability to go the distance on such a number, and this seemed the best way to cover it up? The intent was unclear.

MacLaine makes mild fun of her New Age image, but this too seems self-obsessed. True, the solipsism is temporarily suspended with an introduction of the band and chorus members that’s generous to a fault (it eats up time at what should be the climax of the show and might better be done during the curtain call). We get to applaud each of the 11 talented onstage people who help Shirley do her show, as well as the star herself. But when the show is this thin, the applause sounds hollow.