Entertainment

Nothing fishy about this sweet ‘Pipe Dream’

Watching “Pipe Dream” at City Center, you have to pinch yourself now and then to make sure you’re not hallucinating.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1955 show — presented in concert by Encores! — boasts some seriously preposterous plot and characters. And that’s saying something, since musical theater routinely stretches the boundaries of nuttiness.

Drawing from John Steinbeck’s novels “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday,” the show stars Will Chase (TV’s “Smash”) as a Monterey marine biologist named Doc. He sings ditties about underwater life (“Get a load of the octopus/Looking for a crab to eat/Oozes out of slimy weeds/Creeping on his floppy feet”) and hangs out with eccentric, dawdling buddies who live in a flophouse.

The ladies, on the other hand, live in a cathouse run by a woman named Fauna (Leslie Uggams, classy but a little underpowered).

Fine, so they don’t call it a cathouse, but the Bear Flag Café sure quacks and walks like one: The all-female employees work nights in skimpy satin negligees, and kindly offer “rest for the weary/The weary who don’t want to rest.”

When he’s not exploring tidal pools, Doc falls in love with the adorable Suzy (Laura Osnes, late of “Bonnie & Clyde”), an urchin with self-esteem issues, much like the lovable taxi dancer Sweet Charity.

Suzy sets up shop at the Bear Flag, before moving into a boiler pipe. Seriously. That’s where the title comes from.

Torn between conflicting sensibilities, “Pipe Dream” zigzags between loony subplots, novelty numbers and some astonishing ballads — this is a Rodgers and Hammerstein score, after all, and these guys knew how to write ’em.

One minute you’re scratching your head, the next you’re melting. When Osnes sings “Everybody’s Got a Home But Me,” her crisp clarity and controlled emotion ring true as a bell.

And her duet with Chase, “The Next Time It Happens,” transports us back to an elusive golden age. In those precious moments, “Pipe Dream” strikes the exact right note. Happily we’ll be able to relive it: They’ve just announced a cast album.