Newsday from New York, New York • 98

densig yous oleg ni bospoilget di bai. Chitty stalls, runs out of gas early on part2 0 NEWSDAY PHOTO ARI MINTZ The "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" cast vanquishes the dastardly Childcatcher (Kevin Cahoon). Broadway where the light fixtures plummet and helicopters levitate should know that the other props and people meanies as well as heroes also take to the air at key moments through what feels to the uninitiated like a pretty long evening. Clearly, however, the creators went out for more than zowie effects. The musical has a supremely overqualified cast, including the intensely talented Esparza as Caractacus Potts, widower and inventor-fa- ther of young Jemima (Ellen Marc Kudisch and Jan Maxwell Marlow) and Jeremy (Henry as the infantilized Baron BomHodges).

Philip Bosco as burst and his child-loathing close to dramatic royalty as wife, tyrannical rulers of VulBroadway knows plays their garia, whose craven desire to dotty old grandfather, a former own Chitty is the motor in the military man who says he is "off plot. to India" whenever he heads You want adorable dogs? for the outhouse. Ah, that SO- Two separate showerings of phisticated British humor. confetti over the audience? Erin Dilly is terrific as Truly Beautiful sets by Anthony Scrumptious, the adventurous Ward that combine Rube Goldcandy heiress who can provide berg invention with the lyrimaternal support and fix her cism of blue-blue childhood own motorbike. Best of all, at skies? You got them.

least for us on the dark side, are But Jeremy Sams, the distin- MUSIC REVIEW Clarkson's ready to break away from 'Idol' roots term career as an artist, edged, guitarbreaking away from her fueled past. On her current sion of the tour, she shows how far she Eurythmics' has come. "Sweet Clarkson opened with Dreams (Are "Since Been Gone," the pop Made of trifle from the Swedish hit This)." factory of Backstreet Boys Clarkson Britney Spears maestro Max rocked hard Martin that she turned into a through new chart-topping smash. by call- songs "Walk ing for loads of rock guitars Away" and to play off her powerful "Gone" from voice. Professional that she is, her "BreakClarkson pogoed and spun away" album, throughout the song, even as well as a though she stepped on some punk version glass early in the song (the of the "Idol" initial shock causing her to ballad "A Moflub a line, though she quickly ment Like recovered) and a piece got This" that embedded in her foot.

sounded like The injury and some recur- a one-finger ring problems with her skirt salute to which she, at times, held Simon Cowup to keep it from falling off ell. Even didn't slow her down dur- some ballads, ing the 75-minute set. including "Addicted" "I'm gonna rock out a bit so Clarkson called don't get scared," she said, song I've ever before launching into a hard- the new single MarionA part2 guished English director and composer, has adapted Roald Dahl's musical film of the novel by Ian Fleming (yes: Bond, James Bond) into a script more often silly than clever. The exposition in flashbacks is especially clumsy, which makes it even harder to understand, much less endure, the aggressively unfunny antics of the Vulgarian spies, played as though they mean it by poor Chip Zien and Robert Sella. Kevin Cahoon manages to be both cartoon-bad and Nosferatu-evil as the Childcatcher, but fascist eagles on the Vulgarian banners are a reference too specific to be trivialized.

The score by Robert M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman has the same music-to-skip-to cheerfulness of their earlier "Mary Poppins." There is a nice sense of eccentricity in the family, though we cannot help wondering why everyone is so delighted that the precocious Potts children hate school. Gillian Lynne's choreography occasionally winks at the grown-ups with a reference to a Velma Kelly step from "Chicago" or a live balletic doll from "Coppelia" at the toy-loving Baron's birthday party. Except for Esparza's snappy music-hall solo, "Me Ol' Bamboo," the big acrobatic dance numbers feel more like padding than plotting.

We are seldom allowed to forget that we are really here to see a fake automobile pretend to fly. merly of Evanescence. Her powerful version of "Breakaway" and a strippeddown "Beautiful Disaster" showed she still has one foot in the pop world, while her covers of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart" and B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone" make it clear she's not ready to break with "Idol" world just yet. Clarkson is still in transition, but her new rock ballad, "Dumped," answers any questions about her current direction.

Opener the Graham Colton Band shared Clarkson's niceand-earnest rocker image, but lacks her star power. Their likable, but bland pop-rockers "Killing Me" which includ'AVOSMIN ed some of Oasis' "Champagne "Cigarette" Supernova" were catchy and 'AVOId: enough to. win some love from the crowd. That could 718dV be due to the politeness of Clarkson's fans, though. '62 They're trying to be like their hero, after all, ready to SOOT break away, but not too far.

B7 THEATER REVIEW CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. Music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, adapted by Jeremy Sams, directed by Adrian Noble. Hilton Theatre, 213 W.

42nd St. Tickets $55 to $100. Call 212-307-4100. Seen at Saturday evening preview. BY LINDA WINER STAFF WRITER You know how big family shows are hyped as being fun for children of all ages? Well, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" really sort of isn't.

Unlike, say, "The Lion King," which captivates on a deep variety of levels, "Chitty" the London smash that opened last night at the Hilton (formerly Ford) Theatre might be best appreciated by tots, tweens and grownups who were besotted by the merry 1968 movie when they were tots and tweens. For some of the rest of us, director Adrian Noble's extravaganza is slow to start and, until a burst of goofy wit in the second act, as hard to follow as it is to hear in this people-dwarfing theater with its fuzzy amplification. The star roadster named Chitty does communicate sweetly through expressive headlights, and even sprouts webbed wings and flies. This "fine four-fendered friend" also swims through high tide and bows at curtain time. Audiences nostalgic for a KELLY CLARKSON.

Miss Independent, Miss SelfSufficient becomes Princess of Pop. At Hammerstein Ballroom Wednesday with Graham Colton Band. BY GLENN GAMBOA STAFF WRITER Thanks to both her nervous giggle and her "American roar, Kelly Clarkson has gone from Burleson, Texas, waitress to promising pop star in three short years. Until recently, the 23-yearold singer's rare ability to take someone else's song and take it over a skill needed both on "Idol," as well as the pop world, where songs from a variety of writers are thrown at young singers to turn into hits has brought her success. Clarkson now seems poised to take that short-term victory and turn it into a longD GEN11 PHOTO BY MITCH JACOBSON Kelly Clarkson at Hammerstein Wednesday (which You," have a dramatic rock "my favorite edge to them, thanks in part and to her collaboration with Ben "Because of Moody and David Hodges, formodsmsT 991 sq.