This is more like it. Much more like it.

The program says the stage adaptation of "Singin' in the Rain" playing the Community Center this week is patterned after the national touring version of several years back. Maybe so, but what that tour didn't have, and what this exultant local production has by the bucketful, is a breezy, easy sense of fun.

At least when I caught the tour, it looked labored, worried, frantic. By contrast, there's barely a hint of huff in director James Rocco's energetic mounting for the Music Circus.

Not that you could or should or would want to re-create a movie on the stage (what's the point?), but this "Singin' in the Rain" is a fitting tribute to the celluloid original both because of its faithful evocation of the characters, scenes and numbers in the great 1952 film musical, and because it doesn't look as if it's concerned about stepping outside some imaginary line of slavish re-creation.

Michael Gruber, who plays 1920s movie star Don Lockwood, isn't Gene Kelly. OK. So what? Once he got past a few wooden line readings in the early scenes of Tuesday night's opening, the sinewy Gruber filled the great Kelly's shoes rather smartly. His handling of the title number, which calls for a drenching under a downspout, kicking water in the gutter and hanging from that signature lamppost, is as happy an Act I finale as an audience could ask. And by the way, it really does rain on stage -- rather convincingly. You may not even miss the movie's famous crane shot.

What can we say about Randy Rogel, who has made a specialty of playing Cosmo Brown in stage productions of "Singin' in the Rain"? Only that for an ex-Army officer with degrees in engineering and international relations, he's a remarkably athletic clown. Cosmo, as you'll recall, is the role originated on film by Donald O'Connor. Rogel aces the "Make 'Em Laugh" number, a tour de force of musical slapstick that climaxes with a plunge through a brick wall.

Christina Saffran, who sings sublimely, plays Kathy Selden, Lockwood's ingenue love and the third conspirator in a plot to save "The Dueling Cavalier," Don's latest picture and his first talkie. She may not display quite the spunk of Debbie Reynolds, but who could?

Devised by old Broadway-Hollywood hands Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the story involves subbing Kathy's cultured voice for the screechy yowl of silent star Lina Lamont. Heidi Karol Johnson makes Lina perfectly awful and, on her one number, "What's Wrong With Me?" even a little endearing.

The songs -- "Good Morning," "You Are My Lucky Star," "Fit as a Fiddle" et al. -- are savory leftovers from old-time Broadway, written by the team of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. (Freed produced the movie.) They're tossed off with panache and with rich support from musical director Craig Barna's orchestra.

Happily, "The Broadway Ballet," excised from some stage adaptations, is included here -- a graceful spectacle that shows off not just Gruber, but the ensemble dancing Rocco and co-choreographer Linda Goodrich (working from Kelly and Stanley Donen's original steps) have inspired in a chorus bubbling with spirit. Maria Neenan shimmers as the mysterious woman in Don's "Gotta Dance" fantasy.

It all adds up to one heck of a good time. Will this stage version wipe the movie from your memory? No way. "Singin' in the Rain," the movie, is Hollywood magic of the highest order, greater by far than the sum of its parts. "Singin' in the Rain," the stage musical, can never be that.

But with the spontaneity of live performance, and the exuberance of this talented, graceful and relaxed-seeming company, it's virtually irresistible. See if those twirling red umbrellas in the finale chorus number don't leave you smiling.