'Silence! The Musical,' a 'Lambs' parody

If you're going to commit to a cheerfully advertised "unauthorized" musical parody of "The Silence of the Lambs," hey, don't pretend to be shocked by the really bad taste.

That is, if a dream ballet based on a ballerina doing a split in her partner's face makes you flinch, even a little, "Silence! The Musical" is probably not for you. If, on the other hand, the idea of a lamb chorus in droopy ears and jazz-hand hoofs seems pretty darling, you may feel -- as I do -- more kindly disposed to this junk-food spoof than its mixed quality deserves.

The 90-minute show began on the web nine years ago as a collection of songs by brothers Jon and Al Kaplan. Hunter Bell, one of the creators of inside-theater favorite "," wrote the stage adaptation -- a hit of the 2005 Fringe Festival and a smash in a 60-seat house last summer.

Now the show has settled into a suitably scruffy 199-seat black box in the East Village for what producers hope will be a long, open-ended commercial run.

In fact, the theater can use an infusion of the kind of high-level silliness that was once an Off-Broadway staple. "Silence!" seems too amused with its own dirty-word juvenilia and too repetitious to fill the void left by "Little Shop of Horrors" or "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom."

But there are lots of clever throwaways, plenty of gifted performers and enough of the 1991 creepfest movie to please most of the camp-indulgent among us. Director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli (dance designer for "South Pacific") clearly loves the material, coming up with both shrewd and shameless bits of low-tech tenderness.

David Garrison, new to the production, makes a blissfully restrained, Anthony-Hopkins-worthy Hannibal Lecter, a monster whose dignified, mellifluous high baritone contrasts wonderfully with the unprintable lyrics. Jenn Harris, as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, is less engaging in her Jodie Foster takeoff, though the lisp and jerky birdlike head movements deepen with the chaos.

The Kaplans' jaunty songs follow the story with sweet vulgar faithfulness, Lucia Spina is a hoot in the operetta demands of the senator and her kidnapped daughter. And every time Hannibal Lecter admires his own hilarious kindergarten drawings, it gets easier to forgive the rest.

WHAT "Silence! The Musical"

WHERE PS 122, 150 First Ave.

INFO $25-$79; 212-352-3101; silencethemusicalnyc.com

BOTTOM LINE Cheerful dirty-talking parody with variable inspiration