'Once,' a sweet, primal original musical

It's getting to look a lot like next year and, all autumn long, there hasn't been a new musical to gift wrap and celebrate beyond the New Year. But wait. Just under the wire comes "Once," a peculiar, original, altogether enchanting little show at the New York Theatre Workshop through Jan. 15 -- with Broadway producers circling for a spring transfer.

You may quibble about the musical's originality, but only in the most literal way. This is adapted from the 2006 indie film about a romance between a Dublin guitarist and a pianist from Czechoslovakia. The movie had songs by Glen Hansard, the real-life Irish guitarist who played Guy, and Markéta Irglová, the Czech immigrant and pianist who played Girl. Their song, "Falling Slowly," won an Oscar, and their breakup was the subject of the 2011 documentary "The Swell Season."

Now, they are offstage as composers of this strangely wonderful, folk-pop, Irish-Middle European chamber musical, set in a big, circular, dark-wood tavern where the audience can buy drinks and get to know the 13 extraordinary actor-musicians before the story begins. (Simple set and perfect cross-cultural costumes by Bob Crowley.)

This time, Guy is played with endearing slacker sweetness by Steve Kazee. Despondent over his career and love life, he is approached by pushy, fast-talking, delightfully solemn Girl -- played with unpredictably lovely forthrightness (if, at times, a bit too much winsomeness) by Cristin Milioti.

He fixes vacuum cleaners. She has a broken one. As directed by John Tiffany, with movement direction by Steven Hoggett (the wizards from Scottish war-masterwork "Black Watch"), her vacuum cleaner mysteriously appears. Cue the song called "Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy."

The book, by prolific Irish playwright Enda Walsh, makes this all seem natural -- including the 11 friends and relatives, all virtuosos on fiddles and banjos and more exotic instruments. We get to know bits of everyone's life in this quietly primal, dreamlike show with the rousing, stomping dances and the odd, silent, ritualized ballets for hands and hearts.

Even when the lyrics get a little banal, the harmonic blends are gorgeous. Remember that "Rent" started in this tiny theater. "Once" is smaller, but destined for big -- we hope not too big -- things.

WHAT "Once"

WHERE New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. Fourth St., Manhattan

INFO $75; 212-279-4200; nytw.org