Ron Bright demonstrates that the best way to revive an aging musical is to stick to the format while pumping it up with new energy.

"The Pajama Game" featured John Raitt and Janis Paige in the 1954 Broadway production and starred Harry Connick Jr. in its 2006 revival. Both productions won Tony awards. The show gave Shirley MacLaine a career start, and the 1957 movie version starred Doris Day.

That's a lot of star power associated with a show that isn't filled with great songs, although "Hey There," "Steam Heat" and "Hernando's Hideaway" have demonstrated staying power. Bob Fosse's distinctive choreography is always associated with the show and is usually followed in the drop-in "Steam Heat" set piece that opens Act 2.

The current production at Paliku Theatre benefits from a solid cast of singers and dancers and a production team that knows how to make things work in musical theater.

The show's big opening number occurs in the second scene, when the prologue gives way to raised banks of seamstresses sewing away on the big factory set. As the backdrop flies up, Lloyd Riford's monumental platform rolls forward. Clarke Bright's orchestra pumps out the accompaniment and a huge chorus attacks "Racing With the Clock" with palpable precision and energy.

It is an exciting Broadway opening moment that demonstrates we're in for a fun evening.

A similar moment closes the show, when the entire cast executes Derek Daniels' precision choreography in platoon formation, setting up for a curtain call with energy that hasn't flagged over the show's three hours.

In between there are fully realized characters, good singing and dancing, and a moderated union pay raise dispute in a pajama factory that plays like 50-year-old nostalgic escapism.

Lance Wheeler not only looks and sings like a romantic lead should, he gives the real sense that his character of superintendent Sid Sorokin is a lonely outsider ("A New Town is a Blue Town").

Tricia Marciel is an excellent match as Babe Williams, the tough head of the union's grievance committee who reacts to their immediate attraction by instantly denying it ("I'm Not At All in Love").

Audiences are instantly confident that only the rest of the show will keep them from finally getting together.

The rest of the show features Heather Ensley and Patrick Torres in the secondary love interest between Gladys and Hines, whose relationship is plagued by too much jealousy, and Tracy Yamamoto as Mabel, a secretary who's seen it all.

Despite the abundant energy, however, the show does have a dated feel and a taxing length, which could be improved with some delicate but substantial cutting.

Nevertheless, the Paliku production is an energized and living piece of theatrical history that is definitely worth a visit.