'Lysistrata Jones': War isn't the topic

In 411 B.C., Aristophanes wrote a comedy called "Lysistrata," about women refusing to have sex with their men until they negotiate an end to the war.

Seemingly dedicated to the inexplicable notion that we have no nasty wars on our bubbleheaded minds, Broadway lunges to fill that empty space with "Lysistrata Jones" -- a musical comedy about cheerleaders refusing to have sex until the college basketball team wins a game.

Don't get me started. I missed the upbeat show with the repugnant concept last summer when the Transport Group had a successful run with it downtown in a hip church gym. Transferred now to Broadway, the thing proves to be as trivializing and demeaning as it sounded. Worse -- in terms of entertainment, if not message -- this is also ludicrous, busy and unrelentingly dull.

The title character, aka Lyssie J., is played by Patti Murin with all the perkiness of Olivia Newton-John in a teensy skirt. She rallies her hard-partying female classmates at Athens U. to deny the frat-boy team their "woo" (I warned you) until a 32-year losing streak ends. In Douglas Carter Beane's witless script with its broad winks at Aristophanes, Lyssie means to make the guys passionate about something and, like Susan B. Anthony, no kidding, "change the world."

"If you are giving up, then I am not giving it up," goes one of Lewis Flinn's songs, which are all about the same thing because, face it, the show isn't about anything else. There is a lame nod toward two smart kids (Lindsay Nicole Chambers, Jason Tam) in the library, but they mostly get popular by acting as stupid as the in-crowd. When the smart girl makes a quip to the team captain-closet romantic poet (Josh Segarra), the fellow retorts, "Nothing is over my head because I am really tall."

Best (by which I mean worst) of all, the girls go "talk to a whore" to learn how to tease their apathetic men. The head hooker is Broadway's requisite large black woman (Liz Mikel), who also doubles as the high-decibel Greek chorus.

Director-choreographer Dan Knechtges keeps the energetic actors bumping, grinding and hip-hopping around the basketball-court set, where they also make a few baskets. This is not the same as making points.

WHAT "Lysistrata Jones"

WHERE Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St.

INFO $25-$130; 212-239-6200; lysistratajones.com