To call "Show Boat" anything but glorious and magnificent is to charge verbally into a line of critical and popular opinion that has held solidly for twenty years, progressively extolling first the original production and then each of two revivals. Nevertheless, ignoring for the moment whatever else it may be, "Show Boat" is not a great musical. It tells a dull story peopled with dull characters. Never does it generate more than a mild, academic curiosity as to what will happen next, and whatever does happen next invariably justifies the lack of anticipation.

The show's reputation probably stems from the fact that, although it has a deficient basic structure, it trims that structure superlatively. Jerome Kern's score provides most of the embellishment, with "Make Believe," "Ol' Man River," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Why Do I Love You," and "Bill" soaring over the footlights in the greatest procession of hits ever to gild a single production. And Oscar Hammerstein II has achieved in his otherwise drooping book a kind of graceful, turn-of-the-century nostalgia that dominates most of the evening.

The very woodenness of the plot manages to increase this effect of mellow antiquity. Take Gaylord Ravenal, for instance. He is a Hero in Distress who, due to forces beyond his control, fails to support his Beloved Wife. He leaves her because he Loves her Truly. Finally, both of them Old and Gray, they Reunite on the Spot of their First Meeting. In order to communicate fully the spirit of the showboat era; it is almost necessary to have such a combination of stuffiness and conventionality. Ravenal is a stereotype of an age that took its stereotypes seriously. Consequently, although the narrative itself lacks vitality, the period it characterizes seeps through, and the dances, costumes, sets, and direction go along with the music to crystallize its quaint elegance.

Helen Tamiris' dances are particularly fine, displaying the same blend of comedy and vigor that distinguished her choreography for "Annie Get Your Gun." Two of the best numbers display a remarkably long-limbed and proficient dancer called Laverne French, who fits neatly into the bizarre Tamiris routines. The rest of the cast does not measure up to the company this production offered in New York last year, either as actors or singers. Nonetheless, it captures the spirit of the walking-stick, the courtesy and the graceful bow, which is, in essence the spirit of "Show Boat."