Lyricist-librettist Tom Jones and composer Harvey Schmidt's "I Do, I Do" is, at its best, a pleasant little two-character musical about Agnes and Michael's marriage, from their wedding night in their new house to the day when, many decades later, they move out. In a series of vignettes, it sets all the predictable ups and downs of a marriage to the writers' varied but not especially memorable score. So it was when it opened in 1966 with Mary Martin and Robert Preston playing the married couple. So it is today, except the production currently trudging the boards at JCC CenterStage also has fatal flaws.

To try to help the show along, the people at CenterStage say that they've given it "a modern make-over in a fresh, new production." But the makeover means little and the production is anything but fresh. Because it was adapted from Jan De Hartog's 1951 play, "The Fourposter," and originally set in 1900, it made sense for a bride to tell her husband that she's never seen a naked man before. Moved to a more recent time, the confession feels simply odd while, at the same time, it robs the performance of an opportunity for period charm. Have audiences really grown so ignorant that they can't imagine their way back to the turn of the previous century?

Because Jones and Schmidt (who are best-known for their score to "The Fantasticks") made no bones about envisioning their show as a star vehicle, it requires not stars, necessarily, but certainly two performers who can lift the middling material until it gleams so brightly and we respond so affectionately that we overlook its reliance on quick and easy solutions to problems as serious as marital dissatisfaction and infidelity. Every possible marital clich� gets dusted off in the play's two hours but, alas, dusting is the most anything gets.

There was no onstage chemistry between Laura Marron as Agnes and Doug Kester as Michael, nor could they create any between their characters and their audience. When they entered right after their wedding, she looking lovely in her gown, he already looking schlumpy in his tuxedo, the moment felt real. Here were two ordinary-looking people about to tell us the story of their marriage. But it took only a few minutes for the production's clumsiness to emerge.

The amusing parts of the book and the touches of physical humor added by director Matthew Ames fell equally flat. Marron and Kester couldn't even get laughs out of the score's main comic number, "When the Kids Get Married." Every time they paused for a breath, the room fell deeply silent for an instant. Each time, it was as if they had to start the song all over again.

Kester's singing was unpolished, although his voice was pleasant in a narrow middle range. Marron, who moved about the stage with more surety, had a pretty voice. Her singing of the score's only introspective ballad, "What Is a Woman," was lovely. I don't doubt the conviction of the actors, but they never conveyed that conviction through their characters.

Ralph Meranto's set is attractive, though too big. The large bed sits within a second proscenium, but the whole set might better have been contained within that smaller space. At times, Agnes and Michael felt as if they were racing around the large stage to catch up to one another, or else they were standing dead center with all that wasted space around them. Music Director James Schmitt's accompaniment effectively expressed the feel of a diverse score, everything from waltzes to vaudeville turns.

I'm not sure if "I Do, I Do" has outlived its appeal or maybe, as its creators thought right from the start, it truly does need star power. Not every play needs to be life changing; a pleasantly enjoyable evening in the theater is worth something. But you won't find it in this misguided effort.

"I Do, I Do" will also have an additional New Year's Eve performance on Saturday, December 31, at 9 p.m.

"I Do, I Do"

Through December 18

JCC CenterStage, 1200 Edgewood Ave.

$18-$26 | 461-2000, jccrochester.org