A grand finale

'She Loves Me' is Martin's last dance at Huntington

Jason Babinsky and Ashley Arcement in the Huntington's production of "She Loves Me." (T. Charles Erickson)

In his final production as artistic director of the Huntington Theatre Company, Nicholas Martin leaves us with a sweet, witty, and utterly charming musical to remember him by. Even better, it's a show you probably haven't seen.

"She Loves Me" opened on Broadway in 1963, directed by Hal Prince, but it wasn't a huge hit then, and it's still not as widely known as Martin would like it to be. Once you see it, you'll know why he loves it so much.

The show, with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, is based on the same play that inspired both the James Stewart/Margaret Sullavan charmer "The Shop Around the Corner" and the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle "You've Got Mail." It's a simple little story: Two people who annoy each other by day are, unknowingly, passionate correspondents by night.

We know they'll meet eventually; we know there will be hilarious near-misses and complications along the way. But what the show has that the movies don't is also what makes it special: the music.

Bock's score is varied, enchanting, and quietly evocative of the story's setting, a perfume shop in Budapest between the wars. The melodies beautifully enrich Harnick's lyrics, which are so intelligent and amusing that it's tempting to quote them by the handful - except that they're also so integrally woven into the story that they don't make much sense outside of it.

That may be why the show didn't produce any widely known standards. But it also means that the two hours and 20 minutes unfold as a series of freshly discovered gems: hilarious ensemble pieces, understated but heartfelt solo explorations of the longing for love, and even a perfectly ridiculous tango. Just look at how the opening number condenses a whole lifetime of workaday resignation into a few lines, as the shop clerks greet each other, fantasize about playing hooky to have a picnic, then sigh and go to work:

"It's so nice a day to be dozing under a tree," they all sing.

"And we'll all be out of a job," retorts the pragmatic Sipos.

Concedes the dizzy Ilona: "If it costs that much to get suntanned -"

Sipos: "I'll stay untanned."

"Pale, but solvent," sums up the playboy Kodaly.

Every song has deft little moments like that. Even the exuberant "She Loves Me," which the clerk Georg Nowack sings on an empty stage, flies from giddy exclamations - "I'm tingling," "I'm trembling" - to the kind of quiet joke only a grown-up can write: "I'm freezing - that's because it's cold out." And then it rhymes "incandescent" with "adolescent." Musical-comedy heaven, this is.

How appropriate, then, that our first glimpse of James Noone's scenic design shows the orchestra suspended in a kind of blue heaven above the stage, painted to match the Huntington's handsomely cerulean proscenium arch. The set unfolds to reveal a lovely little bandbox of a parfumerie, all gold and cream, the ideal confectionery setting for the story.

At first you might doubt Martin's choice of Brooks Ashmanskas for the role of Georg; Ashmanskas is a brilliant physical comic and has a nice light character voice, but is he really a leading man? As the show goes on, though, you realize how inspired this casting is: Ashmanskas isn't a typical leading man, but neither is Georg. And it's all the more endearing to see a slightly pudgy, slightly bald, slightly older man find the love he deserves.

As that love, Amalia Balash, Kate Baldwin is surprising in a different way. At first she seems just pretty and pert; only slowly do we notice how shy, smart, and yearning her Amalia is. All that, and a full, vibrant singing voice, too - she's a joy.

In smaller but memorable roles, Jessica Stone is funny and touching as Ilona; we can't wait for her to wise up to the cheesiness of her cheating co-worker, Steven Kodaly (played with unctuous glee by Troy Britton Johnson), but she's irresistible even when she's being played for a fool. Jeremy Beck's bicycle messenger gets a moment to shine and runs with it; Dick Latessa imbues the elderly shop owner, Mr. Maraczek, with autumnal wisdom and rue; and Mark Nelson's Ladislav Sipos is unfailingly entertaining, even if Nelson looks too intelligent to be the "coward" and "idiot" Sipos claims to be.

Martin directs all of them, as well as the skilled ensemble, with light-footed grace. This isn't a grand show - it's too small and warm for that - but it might be something even better: a good one, and a sweet goodbye.