POP MUSIC REVIEW : Erasure--the Sillies on a Grand Scale

The English pop duo Erasure wouldn’t seem to have arrived at the superstar level that would demand towing around a really big shew , but there they were at the Wiltern, opening a 10-night stand Tuesday with a touring production to rival Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” Madonna’s “Blond Ambition” or U2’s “Zoo TV” in the scope of its nonstop theatricality.

Unlike those previous statement-making pop extravaganzas, though, Erasure’s “Phantasmagorical Entertainment” is about little more than its own cheerful gaudiness. Said shew is a case of the sillies on an outsize, major scale.

But not necessarily a toxic case. Willfully banal as this hyper-stylized show biz is, you’d almost have to be a Grinch not to get at least a slight kick out of its eagerness to bombard you with ever-changing sets, costumes and choreography.

Even those with tendencies toward homophobia, musical purism and/or sobriety--the three major stumbling blocks against enjoying this campiness--may find themselves succumbing to it at least in part.

It’s tempting to say that this is the most outrageous pop show ever produced that wasn’t designed by Jean-Paul Galtier, who set the standard with “Blond Ambition.” But outrage is a definite misnomer for what Erasure has in mind. Unlike Madonna, this duo doesn’t really seem driven by the urge to provoke--though you might guess otherwise from the succession of drag outfits that singer Andy Bell appears in, starting with a showgirl-style fringe ‘n’ spangles leotard, or his exaggeratedly dainty and occasionally naughty poses.

There’s a definite sexual component to the show, but Erasure’s plaintively melodic dance songs tend to deal with relationships on a very elemental level, and the staging--evoking Oz, Jules Verne and the Old West, among other motifs--is more storybook than seedy, though the costuming gets on the risque side.

The soundtrack for all this issues entirely from a set of electronic gadgetry self-contained within a little computer cart with a corrugated roof that Vince Clarke actually drives onto and off of the stage.

Clarke, in fact, steps out of this portable musical cockpit for significant portions of the evening, leaving few illusions about how canned the music is. In its favor, sound has rarely had such clarity at the Wiltern, and Clarke has cleverly programmed in some extra riffs not heard on the recordings, which unexpectedly bounce around the hall in remarkable stereo effects timed to sync perfectly with a lighting cue.

Clarke and Bell are joined by twin-sister backup singers and eight dancers, with the full cast going through costume changes for each of the show’s eight “scenes.”

The company pays full-on homage to ABBA, performing all four cuts from the recent “Abba-esque” tribute EP, and it’s a tribute to Erasure’s songwriting that its work often sounds virtually interchangeable with that of the Swedish group that provided some of the best pop of the ‘70s.

The two other outside choices are mixed: Bell doesn’t have the voice for “Stand by Your Man,” the point in the show at which the camp becomes insufferable, despite the humor of dancers all dolled up like Jennifer Jones in “Duel in the Sun.” But his “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” alone on a park bench against a starlit sky, is a surprisingly affecting bit of staging--following the one halfway serious remark, in which Bell pines that “there’s no place like . . . a place with no racism, misogyny or homophobia.”

The show is directed by Angela Conway, and kudos is due costume designer Dean Bright, choreographer Les Child and most especially stage designer Mark Williams, whose clever set shifts quickly and easily from a forest to an ocean liner to a cityscape to outer space.