Scamming as Fast as He Can

As befits a lad of the 1960s with a talent for smooth come-ons, Frank Abagnale Jr. prefaces the story of his life with the promise that it will have "more curves than a Playboy bunny." But as presented in the new musical "Catch Me if You Can," which opened Sunday night at the Neil Simon Theater, this portrait of the con artist as a young man (portrayed by Aaron Tveit) seems to consist mostly of straight lines, like the kind you use to connect the dots in picture puzzles.

Created by much of the team that gave us the long-running Broadway hit "Hairspray" — including the songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the choreographer Jerry Mitchell and the director Jack O’Brien — "Catch Me if You Can" has been constructed with such care that you imagine its transparent blueprint looming between you and the stage. Though the real-life story that inspired this show (and the 2002 movie of the same title) is full of elaborate deceptions and corkscrew twists, you will never at any point be confused by its theatrical incarnation.

Or roused or touched or more than mildly entertained, for about 90 percent of the time. (There is one wow of an exception, a first-act production number led by Norbert Leo Butz.) In the season of the incomprehensible, out-of-control "Spider-Man," I suppose one should give extra points to a show that is so tidy and utterly of a piece. But a tale that follows a continent-spanning pursuit of a chameleon criminal should have, above all things, momentum. And "Catch Me" mostly just seems to stand in one place, explaining itself.

On paper it must have read like a thrill-a-minute proposition. The real Frank Abagnale Jr. had the youth, looks, quick-wittedness and chutzpah that turn criminals into folk heroes. Before he was 21 he had forged millions of dollars worth of checks and successfully passed himself off as an airline pilot, a lawyer and a pediatric doctor.

Steven Spielberg’s movie about him was a silken, sexy entertainment, featuring what is probably the best adult performance given by Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Frank. (Tom Hanks was the F.B.I. agent Carl Hanratty, Frank’s Javert-like pursuer, a role here played by the invaluable Mr. Butz.) And if it didn’t exactly cry out to be transformed into a musical, it possessed several ingredients much valued on Broadway these days.