"Breakfast at Tiffany's' on Broadway

Holly Golightly, the enchanting but evanescent heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's, first materialized in a novella of the same name by Truman Capote, published in Esquire magazine in 1958. A film adaptation in 1961 starred the waifish Audrey Hepburn and introduced the Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer song, "Moon River."

Then Capote's novella morphed into a 1966 musical called Holly Golightly, with music by Bob Merrill (of Carnival and New Girl in Town), direction and book by Abe Burrows (of Guys and Dolls) and starring Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain. You'd think that combination couldn't miss, yet it was almost lifeless when I saw its Philadelphia try-out. Producer David Merrick killed the show before its scheduled Broadway opening night.

Unlike the movie or musical, Richard Greenberg's new stage adaptation sticks closely to Capote's text. A narrator describes how he met Holly when they both lived in an old New York apartment building. Joe Bell, played by George Wendt from "Cheers," is the proprietor of a bar on Lexington Avenue. The narrator and Holly used to visit the bar as often as seven times a day, not always for a drink but because "during the war a private telephone was hard to come by."

When men were scarce

The novel and this play place the story specifically during World War II, when eligible men were hard to find: As a Frank Loesser song of that period put it, "What's good is in the Army/ What's left will never harm me/ They're either too young or too old." Playwright Richard Greenberg and director Sean Mathias skillfully frame the tale with music and images from the wartime era.

Before Holly appears on stage, we hear evidence of her appeal. She's a woman whom men adore, whether they're young like "Fred" or old and overweight like the bartender (who admits that he is in love with her, "but not in that way").

Holly's mailbox, we're told, bears a handwritten card saying, "Miss Holiday Golightly. Traveling." The tag perfectly describes the woman and her trajectory. She's a traveler, ever seeking a place she can call home.

Holly won't give her cat a name, because that would be too much of a commitment to a relationship. Holly's own name was assumed, and eventually we learn how Holly reinvented herself, just as America was reinventing itself during the 1940s.

Just like Capote

Unfortunately, the best thing about this production is not Holly but Cory Michael Smith's personification of the unnamed narrator. (Holly calls him Fred because he resembles her older brother, who is overseas in the Army.)

In the movie, George Peppard played the narrator as a virile young man involved with an older, wealthy woman; his relationship with Holly was platonic. Here the narrator is an aspiring but unpublished writer; as played by Smith with sweet Southern innocence, he appears shy and sexually ambivalent— in short, a young Capote. This persona adds a new and appealing dimension to the story.

Smith doesn't attempt any specific mannerisms; his narrator bears no resemblance to the effete and high-pitched Capote caricature that Philip Seymour Hoffman supplied in the 2005 film Capote.

Where Capote's novella told of rain-swept Manhattan streets, Mathias vividly shows rain slanting across the stage, with superb lighting and sound.

"'Nude' bath

So here we have an appealing story, an evocative setting and an exceptional narrator. What a disappointment, then, is Emilia Clarke as Holly. The 25-year-old English actress is blessed with an attractive face and many fans, thanks to her co-starring role in HBO's "Game of Thrones." But she lacks an appealing stage persona or any discernible acting talent.

A much-publicized nude scene is not only extraneous (and unsupported by Capote's novella); worse, it's unrevealing. Holly and the narrator take a bath together, but they enter and leave the tub fully wrapped in towels. It's a metaphor for Clarke's flat performance.

Holly Golightly remains as elusive as ever— even, apparently, from the actress portraying her.