That’s not the spirit: ‘Ghost the Musical’ more spectacle than spectral

When you go to a musical — a good one, anyway — you leave the theater whistling the score.

But if you see “Ghost the Musical” — which concludes its first and, we presume, only national tour at The Smith Center through Sunday — you leave whistling the set. And the special effects.

There’s certainly nothing whistle-worthy about the show’s wispy score.

Except, of course, for “Unchained Melody,” the 1955 Alex North-Hy Zaret ballad that became a hit all over again in the 1990 movie “Ghost,” the latest in a long line of Hollywood hits turned Broadway musicals.

Not that “Ghost” was ever much of a Broadway musical; it only managed 136 performances in 2012, following a London production and a British tour.

Having seen this “Ghost” on tour, it’s easy to understand why.

To borrow a line from “Unchained Melody,” time goes by so slowly.

Especially when you keep waiting … and waiting … and waiting for a show that’s supposed to be all about all-encompassing, death-defying love to develop an actual heart. Not to mention a detectable pulse.

Even before it begins, “Ghost the Musical” tips its hand — with a giant image of its star-crossed central couple, the New York City skyline in the background. It looks just like the start of a movie’s title sequence — and it works like one, too, leading off a seemingly endless array of video projections (designed by Jon Driscoll, with associate video and projection designer Michael Clark presumably revamping them for the tour) that provide a constantly shifting backdrop for the show’s connect-the-dots plot.

Bruce Joel Rubin — who somehow won an Oscar for the original “Ghost’s” screenplay — provides the musical’s book and some of its beyond-banal lyrics. Most of the power ballad-heavy score, however, comes courtesy of ex-Eurythmic Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, multiple Grammy-winners both. (Suffice to say that Tonys are not in their future, judging by their ploddingly generic, devoid-of-drama songs, which make “Unchained Melody” sound even better by comparison.)

Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you know that “Ghost’s” impossibly happy young lovebirds, investment banker Sam Wheat and sculptor Molly Jensen (achingly earnest Steven Grant Douglas and Katie Postotnik), are destined for disaster — which arrives when Sam is shot and killed in an apparent mugging.

It was no random attack, as Sam discovers when, instead of being dispatched directly to heaven, he’s still hanging around, unseen and unheard — and unable to warn the devastated Molly that he was murdered and that she should watch her back, especially when their supposed friend Carl (played on opening night by understudy Jake Vander Linden, subbing for Robby Haltiwanger) turns up. But no amount of Sam shouting “Molly, don’t listen to him!” seems to work.

Conveniently, albeit inexplicably, Sam does manage to get through to someone: sham psychic Oda Mae Brown (the relentlessly sassy Carla R. Stewart, in Whoopi Goldberg’s Oscar-winning role), providing obligatory but welcome comedy relief. Too bad it’s still not enough to rouse “Ghost the Musical” from its pervasive torpor.

Throughout, director Matthew Warchus (a Tony-winner for “God of Carnage” and a nominee for “Matilda the Musical”) focuses on the show’s well-oiled but utterly empty mechanics, dominated by the aforementioned video projections — which even provide a ghostly digital chorus line to mimic the clenched moves of choreographer Ashley Wallen’s hardworking ensemble.

Hugh Vanstone’s atmospheric lighting (re-created for the tour by Joel Shier) comes complete with eye-piercing strobes that fire off every time the show’s about to unveil another of Paul Kieve’s neaty-keen stage illusions.

It’s all distracting, occasionally even diverting. But such show-offy stagecraft not only distracts but detracts from the all-too-human emotions “Ghost the Musical” pretends to explore. Alas, it’s far too preoccupied with knocking your eyes out to bother touching your heart.

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