Dull tour of ‘Broadway’

“Razzle-dazzle ’em,” sings flinty lawyer Billy Flynn in the Kander and Ebb musical “Chicago.” This lesson was apparently lost on the makers of “Broadway: The American Musical.” Although richly detailed and informative, the six-part PBS series premiering Tuesday lacks the scintillating energy of a showstopper.

Perhaps it is because the series is a six-hour crash course on Broadway history (you can take just so much kick-step-turn before ennui sets in). Perhaps its pervasive sense of nostalgic melancholy ultimately swamps the entire project. Whatever the reason, “Broadway” is mediocre, and, given the source material, that’s nothing short of astonishing.

I mean, we’re talking Carol Channing in scarlet sequins sweeping down the staircase in “Hello, Dolly!,” John Raitt belting his wounded heart out as Billy Bigelow in “Carousel,” Ethel Merman’s roof-shaking rendition of “You’re the Top,” shivers-inducing archival footage of the premiere of George Gershwin’s folk opera “Porgy and Bess” and the emotional spectacle of the opening “Circle of Life” scene from “The Lion King.”

What’s not to applaud?

Regrettably, producer Michael Kantor, who worked on documentaries for both Ken and Ric Burns, takes a stately approach to showbiz, giving us a tour of the Great White Way that is thorough but frequently deadly.

The interviews, for starters, are inexplicably inert. With “witnesses” like composer/lyricist Fred Ebb, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, choreographer Michael Kidd and performer Chita Rivera, you would expect enough buoyancy to wing their stories and insights clear up to the cheap seats.

Instead, the interviewees barely crack a smile. You would think they were discussing actuarial tables rather than a form of mass entertainment with chorus girls and novelty songs. (The two exceptions to the waxworks are theater historian Max Wilk, who relates a Broadway anecdote with a twinkle in his eye, and the delightfully histrionic Carol Channing, who really sells her memory of seeing Ethel Waters sing “Suppertime.”)

If “Broadway” is a buzz kill, much of the fault can be attributed to its all-too-predictable party line pessimism about the American musical. You know the litany:

Nothing terribly spectacular or important happened after the Golden Age of Broadway in the 1950s and ’60s.

We might as well have turned off the marquees after Oscar Hammerstein died in 1960.

Whatever part of the American musical rock ’n’ roll did not kill off, the British “megamusical” movement of the 1980s snuffed out, blah, blah, blah.

You would think that a series devoting six hours to the intersection of musicals and 20th-century America might mount at least an experimental challenge to the conventional sentiment that if you weren’t around for the premiere of “Oklahoma!” in 1943 you missed the “real” Broadway and have been a sap paying top dollar for a pale imitation of former genius.

What kind of message is that to send to future theater audiences — that they missed all the good stuff?

“I’ve been hearing about Broadway disappearing ever since I put on long pants,” Al Hirschfeld observes at one point. “I mean, it’s been the fabulous invalid. But it survives, it survives …”

Exactly.

We may not have Cole Porter or Irving Berlin, but we have William Finn, Adam Guettel, Jeanne Tesori, and Marc Shaiman.

No, there’s no one quite like Ethel Merman or Alfred Drake, but Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone, Raul Esparza, and Heather Headley aren’t exactly chopped liver.

Not all of “Broadway: The American Musical” is a dour elegy for departed glory. The first three episodes, covering 1893 to 1942, are riveting and compulsively watchable, concentrating on the waves of immigrants and their impact on popular entertainment.

The first episode shows Russian immigrant Irving Berlin reveling in the felicities of his newly adopted language, American slang, through his song lyrics, while Irish-American performer George M. Cohan embodies the cocky zeitgeist of the early 20th century in his song and dance routines.

While the images of the Ziegfeld Girls (including interviews with former Follies girls Doris Eaton and Dana O’Connell, remarkably coquettish in their 80s and 90s) provide ample eye candy, Episode 1 has serious moments as well. For example, it delves into the painful double life of black entertainer Bert Williams, a cultivated man from the West Indies, who, because of the era’s crude racial stereotyping, was required to work in blackface. His layered rendition of the ballad “Nobody,” delivered with nuanced irony, is unforgettable.

Fast-forward to the 1920s, with Jewish singing star Al Jolson singing “Mammy” and “Swanee” in blackface. If that is not enough of a cringe-inducing moment, a Caucasian commentator (Stephen Mo Hanan) offers up a rationalization for Mr. Jolson looking like a refugee from a minstrel show. “By hiding behind blackface, he could be himself.” Give me a break — blackface is a complicated and shocking part of American cultural history, and a milquetoast explanation like that demands a rebuttal.

Delightful moments abound in these early episodes, including Eubie Blake and Alberta Hunter enjoying an impromptu duet on a song from his “integrated” 1921 musical “Shuffle Along”; and footage of a rubberfaced and limbed Fanny Brice executing cross-eyed shtick as well as a heart-rending version of “My Man.”

Episode 2 also rediscovers a star largely lost to the ages, Marilyn Miller. In film clips that must have been colorized by Ted Turner, she demonstrates that she could seamlessly morph from a chipper operetta ingenue to a breezy, high-stepping flapper.

The episodes devoted to Broadway’s golden age, the ’30s through the ’50s, feature marvelous scenes from Rodgers and Hart’s sexually brash “Pal Joey” (starring a young Gene Kelly), celebrate the escapist pep of a Cole Porter musical and illuminate the creation of George Gershwin’s masterpiece, “Porgy and Bess,” with footage of the composer soaking up the ambience of South Carolina’s Gullah islands as inspiration for his opera.

The series exhaustively documents the groundbreaking musicals of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, from “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel” all the way up to “South Pacific.” With so much adulation showered on Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser gets short shrift (only “Guys and Dolls” is mentioned), and many of Lerner and Loewe’s musicals are relegated to virtual footnotes.

Kurt Weill is barely brought up. The only glimpse of his influence is Danny Kaye singing “Tschaikowsky” from “Lady in the Dark,” which appears under the credits. Leonard Bernstein is treated only in the context of “West Side Story.”

Thankfully, plenty of face-time is devoted to Stephen Sondheim and his boundary-pushing musicals, from “Sweeney Todd” to “Company” and “Sunday in the Park With George.” Otherwise, the latter part of the series is more notable for what was left out than what was included.

The series whips perfunctorily through the ’60s and ’70s, although there is a terrific clip showing the cast of “Hair” draping Ed Sullivan with love beads and daisies. Except for a maudlin tribute to Jonathan Larson and “Rent,” the modern era of Broadway — a period that has seen musicals like “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and “Caroline, or Change” — is cavalierly written off as a dark age of corporate sellout.

How dreary.

While “Broadway: The American Musical” holds your interest and even sends your spirits soaring from time to time, you may find yourself tapping your toes from tedium rather than the fascinating rhythm. Far more comprehensive and enriching is the companion 5-CD boxed set ($59.98, Columbia Broadway Masterworks and Decca Broadway), a definitive collection of more than 100 songs, most performed by original cast members.

Listening to Jerry Orbach and Jill O’Hara’s fragile “What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?” or Ray Bolger’s jaunty “Once in Love With Amy” or Todd Duncan’s exquisite “Lost in the Stars” — now that’s Broadway.

WHAT: “Broadway: The American Musical”

WHEN: Tuesday to Oct. 21 at 9 p.m. on PBS stations Channel 26 and 22.