THERE may be only one winner, but there will be no losers," explains the wily M.C. in Bicentennial Follies. "We all compete, and one of us rises to the top." In this musical assault on the much-maligned American ethic, several different dramatic modes and perspectives do in fact compete; unfortunately, when parody dips into absurdism and crescendoes finally into tragedy, it's mainly confusion which comes out on top. As a result, although there's more than one winner in this baffling revue cum drama--including a strong cast and some genuinely moving numbers--the show as a whole emerges finally as something of a loser.

Bicentennial Follies is an intriguing concoction. Its authors, Paris K.C. Barclay, Steven Gordon Crist and Mark O'Donnell, have seized on a wellworn theme--the fraudulent underbelly of American life, symbolized by the special sham of Hollywood, attached it to a frankly derivative score and allowed their creative instincts free rein. Their product is far from disastrous--in spite of its flaws, Bicentennial Follies is almost consistently entertaining; but, not too surprisingly, it is hardly a dramatically unified whole.

The show begins in a straightforward satiric vein, using the vehicle of a "Miss or Mr. American Talent" pageant to mock American commercialism and the competitive ethic. When the slimy, selfindulgent M.C. introduces the six stereotypical contestants, all familiarly insipid, we remain anchored in the comfortable world of parody. With the song "An Atypical American Family," however, parody is replaced by a rude inversion of values; to the music of "Mame," a brother who pulls wings off flies and a sister who carries a onearmed doll confess their mutual hatred in starkly unfunny terms. A similarly violent mood underlies "The Hard Time," a sort of Blackboard Jungle in reverse, with the students--both hoodlums and teacher's pets--successfully defying a whitehabited singing nun.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE songs in Bicentennial Follies, however, reflect the sadness that accompanies the dissolution of myths reinforcing the American way of life--perhaps because the show's authors are less interested in taking pot shots at American beliefs than in evoking the anomie that results from their loss. The first break with the viciously comic tenor of the early part of the show is the hauntingly elegiac "Nothing to be Sure Of." A dirge on the familiar theme of the son lost at war, this duet is made memorable by the beautiful blending of Greg Gordon's baritone and Carol Flynn's crystalline soprano, the best voices in a generally proficient cast.

As the M.C., Leo-Pierre Roy, a Do It Yourself veteran, infuses a rich pathos into two laments about the hollowness of show business life, "What's Next" and "Watch the Birdie." "A Few Years," one of Barclay's most majestic numbers, begins as a take-off on blind American optimism; through the sincerity of Rod Skinner's rendition, however, it becomes a moving affirmation of the need to go on believing in America's future, despite the scars of "bigotry, of pride, and of war."

In the end, Bicentennial Follies tries very hard to be a tragedy. When the pageant is over, and the fradulent victor is announced, we are asked to pity first the loser (for there most certainly are losers, the M.C.'s rationalizations notwithstanding) and then the winner, who must pay the price of her triumph by accepting the vacuous premises of American life.

Unfortunately, the revue format of Bicentennial Follies--except for parts near the very beginning and at the end, the show consists entirely of 13 songs--prevents the character development necessary for tragedy in a classical sense. Nevertheless, when the curtain falls, a mood of genuine pathos prevails; for if individual tragedy can only be hinted at, the spiritual poverty that afflicts would-be adherents to the bicentennial myth has been made abundantly clear.

What remains confused, however, is the underlying rationale for the show's abrupt shifts in mood, which are matched only by the noisiness of the set changes. To be sure, Bicentennial Follies is fun to watch; it's certainly possible to enjoy lilting voices and mildly amusing comic vignettes without insisting on dramatic coherence. If Bicentennial Follies gets good mileage out of the exposure and inversion of American values, it also illustrates the inversion of one good old American saying: for here is one case, at least, where the sum of the parts is infinitely greater than the whole.