If a Broadway musical could be thought of as a horse race, then Jeff Brooks would be the dark horse who edges out his talented "Bullets Over Broadway" co-stars by a nose.

An actor of quiet power, Brooks plays mob enforcer Cheech in Woody Allen's entertaining if overbroad Jazz Age musical that opened Tuesday in a touring show at Ordway Center.

His wiseguy character is charged with looking out for Olive (Jemma Jane), a talentless moll who has been imposed on the cast of a Broadway show backed by her boyfriend, mob boss Nick Valenti (Michael Corvino). From his singing to his dancing, even his dramatic silences, Brooks handles the role with style. In fact, he has the best number in the production, a showstopping tap sequence with eight other suited-up mobsters near the end of the first act.

Brooks' talent is much needed in a show that fizzled on Broadway in 2014. Allen adapted his own 1994 film for the stage production, drawing on extant music from the likes of Cole Porter ("Let's Misbehave") and Hoagy Carmichael ("Up the Lazy River").

The plot, too, feels like a retread, replete with stock characters. In addition to the untalented moll, the mob toughs and the show's nerdy playwright, the story includes Broadway diva Helen Sinclair (Emma Stratton) and her gluttonous male co-star Warner Purcell (Bradley Allan Zarr in an ever-expanding fat suit).

Brooks' character has the most interesting narrative arc. After sitting in rehearsals day after day, Cheech makes suggestions to improve the dialogue and plot. Pretty soon he becomes the uncredited co-writer of the play. But he is also a no-nonsense critic, and his pride in his own work makes him look coldly at Olive, who is ruining his dialogue. Cheech goes from a menacing brute to a man of letters — then a brute again — over the course of the 2½-hour show.

If only the rest of the show was as developed. The overarching problem with "Bullets" is not that it is a ham-handed comedy that strains for laughs with low humor. It's that the parts don't cohere.

Even so, the music is beautifully conducted by Robbie Cowan. And the show's original choreography and direction by Tony winner Susan Stroman has been energetically re-created for this tour by Clare Cook and Jeff Whiting, respectively.

Brooks is part of an acting company with good chops. Jane channels Fran Drescher and Rosie Perez in an over-the-top performance as the book-dumb, street-smart Olive. As the diva Helen, Stratton is equal parts Mae West, Elaine Stritch and Morticia from "The Addams Family."

Book-writer and filmmaker Allen, he of the troubled family values, is famous for essaying his id in his work. In "Bullets," a character blurts out early that "the artist can be forgiven anything if he produces great art." That notion is shot down quickly in a show that doesn't always hit the mark.

rpreston@startribune.com

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