New Musical in Manhattan

Three Wishes for Jamie (book by Charles O'Neal & Abe Burrows; music & lyrics by Ralph Blane) is an almost immoderately innocuous musical. It tries very hard to endow a mere formula with the magic of a fairy tale, and struggles, by being as tame as it is Irish, to promote an Eire of good feeling.

Jamie (John Raitt) is a young Irishman who, when offered three wishes by the Queen of the Fairies, chooses travel, a lovely bride and a son who shall speak Gaelic. His first wish granted, Jamie gains his second (Anne Jeffreys) near Atlanta, Ga. But his bride turns out to be barren, and the third wish takes a lot of plot.

Despite its Irishness, Three Wishes is raspberry syrup without a drop of poteen. John Raitt sings handsomely, but Ralph Blane's tunes seldom seem hummablel without also seeming familiar. There are nice George Jenkins sets and Miles White costumes, and there is at least one thoroughly gay dance number. If wishes were horses, the show might go at a fast enough clip to be fun; as it is, it just ambles from one mild scene to another.

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