THERE COMES A point in Absent Without Love when you realize just how haphazard the creative imagination is. It happens when the cast is singing and dancing the show's centerpiece. "A Pair O' Lips Now," a silly play on Coppola's Vietnam epitaph A pair o' lips now...Apocalypse Now...obviously it has something to do with war. And lips. And music. The ideas spin off the wordplay like sparks: World War Two, our last celebrational war: a U.S.O. troupe, those impetuous combat comedians: lips, something to do with lips. One suspects the pun came first and the show followed--something like falling down the stairs.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Slapstick relies entirely on people taking unexpected tumbles, and musical comedy--like slapstick--creates its own sensibilities. Almost anything can fly in a musical if the songs are good, the dancing snappy, and the jokes, if not hilarious, at least well-timed. The willing suspension of disbelief that lies at the heart of the theater can become practically cryogenic under the spell of all that glitter. Complete strangers start singing in harmony, villains start tapdancing--no one will bat an eye if it's snappy enough. A.W.O.L. has all of the elements required for a good musical--maybe too many--but one begins to suspect that even though the cast and orchestra know what they are doing, the director got lost somewhere. The only element of musical comedy that cannot be toyed with is the pacing--and that is just where A.W.O.L. has its problems.

A.W.O.L. is the story of a U.S.O. troupe drafted by army intelligence to infiltrate the island hideout of the notorious traitor, Alura. Alura is an old trouper herself with a weakness for show biz, and so does not suspect that the U.S.O. troupe is really there to discover how she has managed to kidnap and hold two thousand of our G.I.'s. In usual musical fashion, the entire cast breaks down into girlfriends and boyfriends. The U.S.O. troupe consists of three couples. Alura lives with her nearly-Frankensteinian lover, Max. Even the peripheral characters travel around in twos, and then there are these twins who keep traipsing through for no apparent reason. Obviously, director Andrew Sellon has taken God's directive to Noah to heart. Then again, God never ordered Noah to write and direct (and write lyrics, and design the lights, and design the makeup) for an original musical. God wouldn't have done that to Job. Sellon has taken all that upon himself, and seems lost in it.

The plot is arguably silly, though that is not always a bad thing in a musical. What is bad, however, is the fact that the show was clearly finished in haste. Sellon, who wrote last year's Pudding show A Little Knife Music, started A.W.O.L. as a Pudding show and once rejected, put it into independent production. Pudding shows are a genre unto themselves and defy analysis--but A.W.O.L. is a strange hybrid. It relies heavily on puns and innuendo for its humor, and yet it's not nearly as raunchy and satisfying as the annual transvestite theatrical. At the same time, Sellon doesn't seem to have faith that the audience will accept a straighter musical. He constantly falls back on the device of a show-within-a-show (four times in all), as if apologizing for the production numbers. Songs are introduced with meticulous care, something which simply adds ballast to the show and causes such side-effects as a first act which runs for over an hour and a quarter--which can get exhausting, no matter what the show, and ruins some of the surprise.

It also seems unnecessary--because Sellon has little to apologize for when it comes to the musical part of the show. Sellon is a fine lyricist and many of his songs contain nice twists and subtle turns of phrase. Even better is Frederick O. Freyer's music, which is the finest part of the show Freyer has managed to pull off a 40s sound which is not simply copied. You might hear a little Basic one in a while, and some of the harmonies might remind you a bit of some of the classics from that period--but Freyer uses these hints simply to heighten the effect of his own work. Even though the Pudding's acoustics are medieval, and even though some of his most ambitious pieces lose some of their subtlety due to the cast's occasional lack of balance--Freyer has come up with a fine score. Two complex ballads with wonderful lyrics indeed are the highlights of the show. When the three female U.S.O. troupers (Dede Schmeiser, Carla Seidel and Susannah Rabb) sing "Here's to the Guys," or Hope and Alura sing "The G.I. Blues," the show takes on the magical fusion of perfect elements.

Alison Taylor as Alura has a fine voice and carries herself with a swanky, haughty boredom. Together with Lars-Gunnar Wigemark as her lover Max, the two make a fine pair of oblivious, infighting villians. The U.S. Army fares a bit poorer, though, again due to the failings of the book. Sellon has deliberately written the show without any main characters, and thus the three U.S.O. couples are not developed as separate entities to a sufficient degree. Howard Cohen as Hiram Parts stands out from the group, but in all, the characters tend to get lost in the shuffle. Why Sellon then insists in the second act that each couple have a denouement duet is incomprehensible unless it was just for the sake of tying up the many loose ends. By doing so he simply deprives the show of its punch and brevity.

Individual songs, individual scenes, very often work in A.W.O.L. and often they work at a level which is beyond most college musicals. There are many times when it seems as if the show is about to explode, only to be defused by its ponderous plot. With more focus and tightness, the show could be one of the spring's standouts. But, as it stands, A.W.O.L. remains less than stellar.