'Calvin' grows into a charming Cyrano

PITTSFIELD -- Something exciting is happening in a basement here. The Barrington Stage Company's Musical Theatre Lab, which rather grandly calls the lower level of the Berkshire Athenaeum the BSC Stage II, is finding a way to help good new musicals get better.

The current beneficiary of the Lab's development process is Barry Wyner's "Calvin Berger," which had its world premiere last summer at the Gloucester Stage Company. I missed that production because of a death in the family; other critics there found Wyner's musical, which moves "Cyrano de Bergerac" to a modern American high school, promising but in need of work.

So Wyner came out to this musical incubator in the Berkshires, founded last year by BSC and led by William Finn. Finn said before Tuesday night's opening that Wyner has made substantial revisions since Gloucester, particularly in the second act, which had been criticized for some implausible character shifts and a jarring ending.

Whatever he did, it's working. The show now builds smoothly to a sweet but satisfying finale, one that lets the two couples onstage pair off believably as we knew all along they should. With only four characters, there are only so many ways to twist the relationships, but what this resolution lacks in suspense it makes up for in charm.

Charm, in fact, is the chief quality of this featherweight but engaging chamber piece. As Finn noted, Wyner has taken a swashbuckling melodrama and reinvented it as farce; the noble swordsman with the giant nose, who writes poetry to help a handsome dimwit woo the woman they both love, is now a geeky, gawky high school kid, and Edmond Rostand's purplish drama is likewise transposed to a lighter and younger key.

The switch makes emotional sense, unlike some other transplantings of the hardy perennial. (The 1987 film "Roxanne," which had Steve Martin's awkwardly earnest firefighter wooing a stilted Daryl Hannah, comes to mind.) Where better to set a story about obsession with personal imperfections and helpless infatuations than in high school? If ever there were a time when everyone felt like Cyrano, it's in those tormentingly self-conscious adolescent years.

Indeed, Wyner lets us ponder whether Calvin's proboscis problem isn't, so to speak, all in his head. The kid, appealingly played here by David Perlman, looks normal enough, if a little beaky, and the other characters all have flaws of their own to fret about: Calvin's secretly adoring sidekick, Bret (the remarkable Gillian Goldberg, the sole Gloucester alum here), hates her tush; pretty boy Matt (Aaron Tveit, extremely pretty and even more extremely funny) knows he's tongue-tied, and even the beauteous Rosanna (sweet-voiced Elizabeth Lundberg ) worries that she's just a pretty face. If Calvin's a freak, Wyner implies, so are we all.

It's not a particularly complex message -- embrace your imperfections and reveal your true self to find true love. But it's appealing, and it provides serviceable scaffolding for Wyner's gently witty lyrics and smartly observant take on teenage life.

He has a knack for sly but apt pop references, from Dr. Phil to Mr. Potato Head, and a gift for reprising a lyric to reveal its layers of feeling. "Never Know," for example, begins as Calvin's reassurance to Matt that Rosanna won't suspect who's really writing the love notes; it develops into his mournful lament that she'll remain unaware of his love, then closes the first act with all four characters declaring to us what they hide from one another.

What could still use work are the tunes, which are pretty enough but too similar in rhythm and range to linger distinctively in the mind. It would especially help to give each character a more individual sound; a moment when Matt raps against Calvin's more melodic line hints at the kind of sharp stylistic contrasts that could enrich the score.

Still, what Wyner is creating here is genuinely exhilarating. By providing detailed critiques and a solid production, the Musical Theatre Lab has done him -- and us -- a great service. It's helping "Calvin Berger" grow up.

Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.