To OZ: Christopher Weible, Gerald Clarke, Malika Petty, Darryl Lewis and Nathan A. Lilly.

All those wandering, prepubescent wenches nervously searching for home have become a boon to popular culture. They picturesquely jump down rabbit holes, get caught in twisters and invariably flee from the perverted lust of wolves and witches.

These trilling lassies reached their peak in the Depression as symbols of American capitalism with Walt Disney's Snow White yearning for a prince and MGM's Dorothy longing to forgo her sepia Kansas real estate for the Technicolor wonders that lurked over the rainbow.

In the early '70s, producer Ken Harper decided it was time to desegregate the Oz gang in an Afrocentric fashion. He hired a little-known black composer-lyricist, who wrote a vibrant gospel/rhythm-and-blues flavored score, so that Dorothy and her entourage no longer merrily skipped down the Yellow Brick Road, but instead cavorted with animated bricks as they "eased on down that road" in the re-titled The Wiz. Though lacking the pathos and psychological detail of the 1939 film, the show took on a sparkling identity all its own.

The piece was credited with bringing new black audiences into the Broadway theater during a run of 1,672 performances. Unfortunately, today many people only know this engaging musical from its mangled 1978 film version. Though Diana Ross admittedly sang the hell out of the score, the story was rendered as psychobabble to accommodate Dorothy's reconception as a grownup, pathologically introverted school teacher.

In an apparent farewell to the Evans Amphitheater as a venue for fully staged musicals, Cain Park is presenting a flawed, but ultimately winning rendition of The Wiz. The necessary charm and sass are there in abundance, but the effort doesn't as easily ease on the down the road as it should.

Richard Gould's sets are too undernourished to evoke the needed sense of wonder. Due to various technical difficulties, the evening chugs off like a clunky train, with lost lyrics, sloppy scene changes and a lethargic pace threatening to render the journey as a dirge. Yet aboard the train are all the passengers required for a whiz of a Wiz. Approximately a half-hour into the proceedings, everything seems to magically revivify.

Melika Petty's sufficiently darling Dorothy dispels the gloom, Gerald Clarke's galvanized dancing Toto stirs the breeze, and Dan Call's drag witch beguiles the audience. As usual, choreographer Martin Cespedes' way with a production number snaps the evening to attention. Example: Wicked Witch and her minions doing "Don't You Bring Me No Bad News" with Busby Berkeley configurations featuring giant beach balls. Director Pierre-Jacques Brault's contribution to the mirth includes illustrating his knack for such enlivening fey touches as having an Emerald City guard prominently paging through a souvenir program of that other Oz musical Wicked.

More pertinently, the mostly bright occasion is a reminder that, although those unfamiliar with Cleveland theater history may minimize the projected passing of the Evans as a musical venue, for others of us locals who have spent countless summers simultaneously luxuriating in both great lyric theater and its natural setting, the loss would be incalculable.

The Wiz: Through July 6 at Cain Park's Evans Amphitheater, Lee and Superior roads, Cleveland Height, 216.371.3000.