NEW YORK -- That "The Wedding Singer" is now a Broadway musical will be bemoaned by some as evidence of the theater's capitulation to the screen. But never having seen the movie, or even having wanted to (or having seen any Adam Sandler movie at all, or having wanted to), I'm not the best one to join that chorus.

	Richard Kornberg and Associates/Associated Press Stephen Lynch stars as "The Wedding Singer" in a new Broadway musical based on the 1998 Adam Sandler movie. Click photo for larger image. Related article There's nothing '80s about 'Wedding Singer' cast party

Instead, I can just tell you that "The Wedding Singer" is a relatively sweet comedy romance, emphasis decidedly on the comedy, of the double ugly-ducking genre. I had a pleasant time and occasionally something better than that, which may be faint praise but I think speaks well for a show with this heritage and these obsessions.

Those obsessions are the musical styles and pop cultural trivia of the '80s, which are so pervasive as to amount to a central character. If the musical doesn't blow me away, how could it? I can't even remember the '80s, let alone Billy Idol, Mr. T, Cyndi Lauper, MTV and the rest. I guess I had better things to do that decade, or maybe worse, but for those in their 30s, give or take a few years, "Wedding Singer" will have the additional attraction of a trivia game played at high speed.

For the rest of us there's the story. Robbie is a cute loser whose lack of ambition is evidenced by the conventional wedding band he fronts, making synthetic whoopie for one bash after another. But it is a key to Robbie's and the musical's sweet center that the obvious social satire of these early scenes -- calling our attention to the tackiness of the decor and conventionalized sentiments -- never overwhelms the show's essential sympathy with the plaintive human emotions beneath even the pretentious and banal.

Robbie falls for Julia, a waitress in suburban New Jersey where his band works. He's already engaged to scary bombshell Linda (an '80s bombshell, so think Madonna), who leaves him in the lurch at the church. Julia is on her way to an engagement with equally scary, conceited, philandering Glen, who's riding the trash bond boom, so we know where he's headed.

These two low-self-esteem ducklings are also cute as heck, and we know they'll find each other, but not before several ups and downs, revelations and a mad dash across country to end up in a Las Vegas of professional celebrity imitators and fly-by-night matrimony.

There's plenty of wit in "Wedding Singer" in how the score by Matthew Sklar plays off '80s pop, but mainly in the book by Chad Beguelin and lyrics by him and Tim Herlihy (who wrote the movie). There's a funny song bit, not even in the program, when Robbie tries to write a love lyric with Julia's help. The show keeps amusingly breaking the frame, as in a love-at-first-sight moment -- with its freeze, light change and portentous sound -- where the two heroes discover there's a natural explanation for the supernatural effects.

But here's the difficulty, endemic to all parody: You have to do trashy to mock it, so you are in danger of appearing trashy yourself. The joke about "glittering downtown Newark," for example; the purposefully bad wigs; the shticky grandma with the vibrator bed; the humongous sparkle ball -- these are funny, but they also define the world in which we root for Robbie and Julia.

Less ambiguous is the constant small detail of comic business on the periphery, where the shape-shifting ensemble has plenty of character-defining bits that argue attentive direction by John Rando ("Urinetown").

This is also true of the witty choreography by Point Park grad Rob Ashford ("Thoroughly Modern Millie"). It starts right off with a frantic disco number that announces period and style but also overstates and mocks it. Later, there's a brilliant number, in which Glen's Wall Street colleagues dance their grotesque worship of money, and Linda's pole-dancing return to Robbie's life. Throughout you can also see Ashford's contribution in the staging of songs and brisk movement.

Stephen Lynch makes an appealing Robbie, with enough built-in irony to keep from being over-cute. Laura Benanti's Julia grows on you as she frees herself from dependence on Glen, whom Richard Blake gives plenty of domineering swagger. That's the word for Felicia Finley's bombshell, too. But my favorite performance is by Amy Spangler as Julia's friend Holly, bringing sexy, funny and cute to the traditional role of the second ingenue. Matthew Saldivar also brings individuality to a thug-klutzy member of Robbie's band.

However, Kevin Cahoon's Boy George-wannabe band member (I guess I recall a few things about the '80s) involves too many gay jokes. That's that live-by-trash, die-by-it problem. It's like Gregory Gale's garish costumes -- are they intentionally as funny as I hope they are?

Among the busy ensemble are Pittsburgh natives Matthew Stocke (CMU) and Christina Sivrich (Point Park), each playing a number of vivid cameos, and Michael McGurk, standing ready as a swing.

As to whether they'll long enjoy their employment, who knows? I feel just about as ambivalent as I did about last spring's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," and it's doing just fine.

At the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St.; 1-800-432-7250.