Making a bearnaise sauce is a mysterious thing. I once was putting one together — all the ingredients were blended in perfect proportion, gentle heat was being applied, and the sauce was thickening just as it should — when it suddenly just separated out. Fell apart. I applied some quickly learned emergency measures, and the sauce came back together. Mostly. But I've always wondered what went wrong at the stove that evening.

Same thing applies to the current Broadway revival of Rogers and Hart's The Boys from Syracuse. There's tons of yummy ingredients to the show — including a pretty good retooled book by Nicky Silver (replacing the George Abbott original) — but only sometimes do all the parts smooth out.

The plot — taken from Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" — is set out in the opening number, "Hurrah! Hurroo!," a miracle of compact exposition. The action takes place in Ephesus. Two sets of identical twins — one pair of aristocrats and one pair of slaves — from Syracuse are lost at sea seven years ago. Residents from Syracuse are executed in Ephesus because of their origins unless they can come up with 1000 drachmas. One of the aristocrat twins is established as an Ephesian war hero; the other comes to town to find his twin. Each twin has his respective identical slave with him.

Merriment ensues.

No, really. After the opening number, the show sags for most of the first act as the focus turns on the four romantic leads. But whenever it's time for the comic leads and supporting players to shine, the pace picks up and the show becomes tons more fun. The second act curtain-raiser, "You Took Advantage of Me," has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the show, but features four of what I think were once known as chorines. I've gotta say, I like the chorines. The audience didn't quite know what to do with them. Applause would have been good. Whistling would not have been out of order, either. One of them, Dierdre Goodwin, will apparently be in the upcoming movie of Chicago. I'll be there.