"A Chorus Line" has not aged well. Neither have the performers in the national tour of the 2006 Broadway revival of it that opened a two week engagement at PlayhouseSquare's Palace Theatre Tuesday night.

Age is one of the many "issues" raised in this navel-gazing musical about the lives of Broadway gypsies, along with sexual orientation, adolescence, knee injuries, drug use and generally not being particularly happy about one's career.

Not that there's anything wrong with gazing into the navel of a dancer, but there are no navels on display here for such a pastime. No, it's the dancers, when they're not actually dancing, gazing endlessly into their own figurative navels.

It's heresy to say so, but "A Chorus Line" has never been and will never be a great musical. Music by Marvin "The Way We Were" Hamlisch? Script co-written by James "Legends!" Kirkwood? Lyrics by Edward "A Class Act" Kleban?

But with its Fosse-esque choreography, it did capture the imaginations of middlebrow Broadway audiences starting in 1975. Perhaps it was the fact that the show was essentially written by its own cast, who contributed their stories of growing up, becoming dancers and growing insecure.

And so it ran for more than 6,000 performances over nearly 15 years, the longest-running Broadway musical until an even less great musical, "Cats," knocked it off.

Someone came up with the brilliant idea to revive it, with original co-choreographer Bob Avian as director, though most of its novelty was long worn away.

Is it really surprising to anyone in this day and age that the typical Broadway chorus line has gay men in it? Or that dancers can't dance forever? Or that people who didn't get enough love in their childhood need the applause of others to keep going into their adulthood?

Right. The lackluster 2006 production, which played like a museum piece, didn't last two years on Broadway.

The national tour tours on, but with only a few exceptions the cast visiting Cleveland for the next couple of weeks doesn't have much life. The dancing is muddled and unsure, the sob stories soporific and the story arc saggy.

Despite a sweater Charlie Brown wouldn't wear and an inexcusable haircut, Michael Gruber has an appropriately icy and commanding air as Zach, the director-on-the-make.

And Kevin Santos sports some handsome musculature as Paul, though his long monologue about being a drag queen is about as electrifying as an evening with Charlie Rose.

The rest, for the lack of an actual navel, is flabby, and only intermittently worth a gaze.