Baggage bogs down ‘Catch Me If You Can’

It promises to be a first-class trip.

Alas, “Catch Me If You Can” — at The Smith Center through Sunday — never quite takes flight.

Maybe it’s all the baggage hauled around by this musical version of teenage con man Frank Abagnale Jr.’s 1960s exploits.

It’s from some of the Tony-winning folks who brought you the musical “Hairspray,” notably director Jack O’Brien, choreographer Jerry Mitchell and the songwriting team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. (Playwright Terrence McNally, a multiple Tony winner himself, previously worked with O’Brien on the Broadway adaptation of “The Full Monty.”)

Despite the show’s impressive pedigree, however, “Catch Me If You Can” never breaks free of its gimmicky, variety-show concept.

The sleek, fleet-footed 2002 movie that inspired the musical — directed by Steven Spielberg, with Leonardo DiCaprio as a breezy young scammer and Tom Hanks as his FBI agent nemesis — capitalized on the tale’s inherent cat-and-mouse structure.

To say nothing of Abagnale’s amazing games — passing himself off as, among other things, an airline pilot and a doctor, all while passing millions of dollars in bad checks.

That’s still the game the musical version of “Catch Me If You Can” tries to play, promising “more twists than a peppermint stick,” to quote its snazzy opening number, “Live in Living Color.”

The living-color part may be true enough, but it’s not quite as live-wire as it boasts.

The main problem: the show’s format, which hearkens back to those “Mad Men”-era TV “spectaculars,” featuring elaborate song-and-dance numbers pairing a headliner with an eager young chorus.

In “Catch Me If You Can,” it’s eager young Frank Abagnale Jr. (a cheerfully ingenuous Stephen Anthony) starring in his own TV special, leading audiences on a guided tour of his flim-flamming life — just before he’s arrested by dogged FBI agent Carl Hanratty (a sly, deceptively sad-sack Merritt David Janes).

Along the way, in sometimes diverting but always self-conscious musical numbers, we meet significant characters in Frank Jr.’s life.

There’s his glad-handing dad (big-voiced Dominic Fortuna), a self-deceiving smoothie, and his calculating mother (Caitlin Maloney), neither of whom fits the Ozzie-and-Harriet mold.

And, ultimately, there’s Frank’s dream girl Brenda (Aubrey Mae Davis), a dedicated nurse winsome enough to make him consider abandoning his criminal ways.

In between, we get lots of scenes where Frank sings about his schemes — assisted by a high-kicking chorus outfitted in William Ivey Long’s witty costumes. (Also providing valuable support: groovy, eye-catching video backdrops, designed by Bob Bonniol, that help David Rockwell’s modular scenic design morph from airport to motel to bar to hospital and beyond.)

What we don’t get, frustratingly, is any particular insight into Frank Jr., beyond a few cursory nods to his daddy issues — and a vague notion that his life might be perfect, if only it were more like TV.

It’s only when “Catch Me If You Can” downplays its TV fixation that the show starts to emerge from its well-oiled torpor.

Too bad those scenes don’t involve Frank Jr.

Instead, they spotlight Frank Jr.’s two father figures: Frank Sr., who’s as much of a child as his son, and the stern Hanratty, who’s really got the lad’s best interests at heart.

The numbers where they take center stage — especially the rueful “Little Boy, Be a Man,” where Frank’s two dads share a drink (or two) and recall their own, less-than-nurturing fathers — give audiences a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been.

That is, if “Catch Me If You Can” were more interested in its characters than its flash-and-dazzle concept, which turns out to be more constricting than a fastened seat belt — in a cramped coach seat on a bumpy, behind-schedule flight.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.