Johnny comes home from his first day at school, and his mother asks him how it went.

“It was a little confusing,” he responds.

Quizzical, his mother asks, “Couldn’t you follow what the teacher was saying?”

“Sure,” he answers.

“Was the math too hard?” she asks.

“Naw, that was easy.”

“How about the reading and writing?”

“Piece of cake,” he answers.

“So what was confusing?” she finally asks.

“I couldn’t follow along. They kept changing the subject.”

There is almost nothing I didn’t like about The Women of Brewster Place: The Musical. The cast is brilliant, the script is fresh and clever. The funny parts are funny, the sad parts are sad, the poignant parts, poignant and the uplifting parts, uplifting. The only problem I had was it kept changing focus. The subject of each vignette, one of the women living in Brewster Place, would abruptly fade into the background as the focus shifted to someone else. While each vignette was highly entertaining and engaging on its own, each bore very little relationship to the next, except the loose thread that each lived on Brewster Place. It was like a musical in search of a theme.

However, the musical was simply being true to the book on which it was based. Unlike most musical adaptations, Brewster Place was adapted not from a novel or film but from a book of short stories. In the book “The Women of Brewster Place,” author Gloria Naylor presents separate, slightly integrated short stories, each telling the story of one of the women of Brewster Place – a run-down housing project cut off by a giant wall from the ritzier neighborhood next door, much in the same way “The Joy Luck Club” uses a group of mahjongg players to tell the individual stories of its members. Unlike Amy Tan’s novel, however, “The Women of Brewster Place” has the main character in each story appearing as a minor character in another of the short stories. The musical tries to stay true to this model, but makes a half-hearted attempt to bring the stories together at the end and return focus to the community as a whole.

The real meat of the play, however, is in the individual character studies of the women, as disjointed and unconnected as they are. They are done primarily in song, which are terrific. The melodies are catchy, the lyrics are funny and the choreography is wonderful. There are no “throw-away” numbers. Just as a loving mother nurtures her children, playwright Tim Acito and director Michael Matthews have clearly nurtured each piece to its maximum potential, playing no favorites along the way. As a result, I find it difficult to pick one favorite song, although for sheer laughs, Lorraine’s (Christine Horn) solo in “Smile” stands out, while all of Mattie’s (Kim Yarborough) haunting ballads (”Can You Hear Me?” “Leave the Lights On” “This Ain’t a Prayer” and “No”) deliver a knock-out punch of raw emotion. And the ensemble salutes to Etta Mae (Cheridah Best) and Cora Lee (Julanne Chidi Hill) are marvelously entertaining. Kelly M. Jenrette gives a strong performance as radical Kiswana Brown, as well as Erica Ash as Tee. Even the lighter characters of Sophie (Charlene Modeste) and Mavis (Lisa Tharps), the neighborhood nosey parkers, are perfect comic relief.

The entire cast has amazingly strong voices, full of not only vocal, but emotional, range, which blend well together. And they have the talent to tackle the complicated musical and choreographic arrangements demanded by the material and by choreographer Ameenah Kaplan.

For what it is – a musical adaptation of a series of short stories – Brewster Place is an absolute gem: entertaining, witty, poignant, everything a musical is supposed to be. As long as one doesn’t expect some deep, underlying meaning or message, it is simply highly satisfying fare.

The Women of Brewster Place: The Musical is performed Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 pm through June 6, 2010.

The Celebration Theatre is located at 7051B Santa Monica Blvd., just east of La Brea.

Ticket prices: $30

Reservations online at www.celebrationtheatre.com or by phone at (323) 957-1884