Poof! Eden Returns to a Southland Stage : Theater: The star of the well-remembered 'I Dream of Jeannie' TV series opens tonight in 'Nite Club Confidential' at Long Beach Civic Light Opera.

By CHUCK CRISAFULLI

Sept. 30, 1995 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Barbara Eden doesn’t need magic bottles and billows of pink smoke to make an entrance these days. The actress, still as striking as she was as the unbottled star of “I Dream of Jeannie,” is instead relying on the enduring spell of Broadway standards and torrid torch songs as the star of the Long Beach Civic Light Opera’s production of “Nite Club Confidential.”

The musical, which opens tonight for a two-week run, is a playfully evocative send-up of ‘50s-era film noir, complete with brassy dames, smooth-talking sharp-dressers, cheap booze, zingy one-liners, and even a musical homage to Mamie Eisenhower. Songs come by way of such esteemed talents as Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer and Frank Loesser, with original material supplied by “Nite Club” creator Dennis Deal and co-writer Albert Evans.

The Long Beach run will be the show’s third Southern California engagement since 1986, but, surprisingly, it will mark the hard-working Eden’s first Los Angeles-area stage appearance since she starred in an Orange County production of “Pajama Game” before her Jeannie tenure began (the TV show ran from 1965-1970). The homecoming-of-sorts seems to have added an extra jolt or two to the actress’s pre-opening jitters.

“Nervous? What are you talking about?” she asks in wide-eyed dismay before breaking into a hearty laugh. “This is when my superstitions come out. All of them. Don’t put a hat on a bed. Don’t whistle. Stay away from black cats and ladders. If it’s got anything to do with bad luck, I won’t be doing it for the next month.”

In “Nite Club,” Eden plays Kay Goodman, a flamboyantly world-weary nightclub singer whose tastes run toward glittering dresses and younger men of questionable intentions. In the course of Kay’s struggles to stage a career comeback, she belts out such vintage hits as “That Old Black Magic,” “Goody Goody” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”

“She’s a real lady of the supper-club circuit,” Eden explains. “She’s both grand and camp. She’s a fun character and it’s a funny show, but the secret to my performance is to just play it straight. The comedy takes care of itself.”

Though Eden may be best remembered as TV’s most fetching, pink-pajama’d genie, she’s maintained a notably varied post-Jeannie career. She was the movie mom who “socked it to” the “Harper Valley PTA”; she re-teamed with “Jeannie” co-star and close friend Larry Hagman for a season of “Dallas,” and her Bar-Gene production company has produced a string of successful TV movies, with the mystery-thriller “Dead Man’s Island’ forthcoming on CBS.

Prior to “Nite Club Confidential,” Eden was most recently on stage in a production of “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” and in Neil Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” opposite Don Knotts.

With all those credits accumulated since her pajama days ended, does Eden still have any affection for genie Jeannie?

“Oh my, yes,” she smiles without hesitation. “I like her a lot. And I must say she’s done all right for herself--the show’s never been off the air and it’s been shown all over the world. People still come up to me on the street and tell me what their favorite episode was, and just the other day I had to settle a heated dispute in a salon--yes, there was an episode where I wore green pajamas instead of the pink ones.”

Being as closely identified with a role as Eden is with Jeannie might prove dispiriting to some actors, but Eden says she never soured on her best-known character.

“It never felt like a burden while I was doing the show. Maybe it was, and I didn’t know it, but I never perceived it that way. And after the show I continued to work without ever being cast in roles that were close to Jeannie at all. I think the thing that kept me healthy as a performer was that whenever we had breaks on the show I went back to the theater. I’d go out and do ‘Finian’s Rainbow’ or ‘Kismet’ and then go back to the show. That was very good for the head and made it a lot easier to put the hat and the braid back on.”

Eden had enough fond memories of “Jeannie” to take part in two reunion specials, marking the show’s 15th and 25th anniversaries. But it’s only recently that she’s been able to enjoy the show as a fan.

“I’ve always found it difficult to watch my own work, so while the show was on I rarely saw it. Now I’m much more comfortable with it because it’s like watching someone else. And I like seeing that Jeannie wasn’t a cartoon. She was--a real person,” Eden laughs. “Not human. But a real entity. I played her as a tomboy and as a fish out of water. She wasn’t trying to be funny and she wasn’t stupid. She was simply from a different world.”

As busy as Eden is these days, she wouldn’t mind returning to Jeannie’s world once more if--following the lead of “The Brady Bunch” and “The Beverly Hillbillies”--”I Dream of Jeannie” becomes a feature film.

“Well, I suppose they’d want a younger Jeannie, but I’d like to be the ‘very strong, trouble-making aunt.’ I’ve already had some practice playing Jeannie’s evil sister, and that was tremendous fun. I think I’d like to be the aunt who steers Jeannie in the wrong direction. In fact, I’d love to do that. Forget the pink and the green--I’m ready to be the genie in red.”