Under the direction of Des McAnuff (“Jersey Boys”), the musical takes us into the early decades of the 20th Century, with vivid battle scenes between the Russians and the Germans, resistance to the slaughter, revolutionary actions against the Russian ruling class and oppression after the Communist takeover. There is plenty of gunfire, explosions, smoke filling the stage and flashy lighting, with action in the background and foreground utilizing the entire playing space. Credit Michael Scott Mitchell for scenic design, Paul Tazewell for costume design, Howell Binkley for lighting, SCK Sound design and Sean Nieuwenhuis for projection and video design. They are all essential to the overall look and feel of this production.

At the core of the spectacle are the book by Michael Weller, the music by Lucy Simon and the lyrics by Michael Korie & Amy Powers. The heavy-going story almost of necessity is episodic, given the sweep of events, and the score, despite its intensity, is generally uninspiring. The dramatic numbers expressing political passion are best. The romantic songs tend toward the clichéd even though the actor-singers are in good voice and giving it their all.

Tam Muti performs the role of Yuri Zhivago, a doctor and poet whose dedicated medical work involves treating soldiers at the front. However, he comes from the privileged class, which inevitably gets him in trouble with the revolutionaries.

Zhivago is married but falls in love with the beautiful Lara Guishar, played effectively by Kelli Barrett, who becomes a nurse on the battlegrounds and later a librarian when the action shifts to the Ural Mountains. She has a past of being the mistress under the control of an influential upper class lawyer, Viktor Komarovsky (Tom Hewitt), who has a talent for survival. Lara confesses her past to the revolutionary whom she marries, fiery Pasha Antipov (Paul Alexander Nolan). But Lara falls hard for Zhivago. The complications mount and mount, some of them expressed in song, others in turgid moments of impassioned acting.