A Review of "Phantom" in Bellport, N.Y. Jeff Bellante A FAMILIAR FACE Jamie Jackson plays the title role in "Phantom" at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport. Falling chandelier? Check. Fog machine? Working overtime. "The Music of the Night"? Nope. "Phantom," now playing at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, is not "The Phantom of the Opera," Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the same story set in the Paris opera house. Both are based on a French novel by Gaston Leroux that started life in 1909 as a newspaper serialization. It is no pale imitation. With music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and book by Arthur Kopit, who together created the musical "Nine," "Phantom" was written in 1983, before Mr. Lloyd Webber opened his blockbuster musical in London in 1986 and in New York two years later. No one has stepped up to bring the Yeston-Kopit show to Manhattan, though it has enjoyed a healthy existence elsewhere. In 2003, Mr. Yeston said his "Phantom" had had more than 1,000 productions around the globe and called it "the greatest hit never to be produced on Broadway." This is the fifth time that Gateway has produced it, starting in 1993, and it is well worth the effort. In many ways richer than the Lloyd Webber musical, the Yeston-Kopit play offers a more varied and less pretentious score. It also provides a more complex history for the phantom himself, who gets the name Mr. Leroux gave him: Erik. The current production is smoothly staged, boldly acted and beautifully sung. It is not as flashy as the Broadway show, of course, but it holds its own. Dom Ruggiero, the director, has had practice. He directed the previous four productions at Gateway. His seamless show, with only a couple of slightly off moments (a death and a revelation are too abrupt), keeps the audience riveted. Three other members of the artistic team - Jeffrey Buchsbaum, the music director, Jose M. Rivera, the costume designer, and Christopher J. Landy, the lighting designer - also worked on every "Phantom" production at Gateway. In an article in the program they talk about adding fresh perspectives and new elements each time. Each does a fine job, particularly Mr. Rivera, who wields a fanciful imagination both on the multiple masks this phantom owns and on many of the women's costumes. Even with his face mostly obscured, Jamie Jackson delivers a vivid performance as Erik, the disfigured man who lives underneath the Paris opera house and is thought to be an evil ghost by most of the people who work there. The exceptions are Gerard Carriere, the opera's longtime managing director, with whom Erik has a special bond, and Christine, an innocent young singer with whom Erik falls in love. Some of the most poignant scenes are between Erik and Carriere, played with authority and a strong voice by Bruce Winant, and between Erik and Christine, played by Bonnie Fraser, who looks and sounds as lovely and caring as she is supposed to be. In an especially gripping scene, Mr. Jackson slowly bends his body at painful angles as Erik agonizes over whether to show his face to Christine. The movements are both stylized and very believable, of a piece with this phantom's personality, which is madness and anger filled with tenderness and hurt. He even has a wry sense of humor, which he shares with Carriere. Other performers also stand out. Alicia Irving is deliciously hateful as Carlotta, a diva who takes over the opera house and casts herself in every lead female role, whether she can sing it or not. Humorously, in every case she cannot. Ms. Irving creates a comic villain as entertaining as Cruella de Vil or Snow White's vain stepmother in the Disney animated films. Carlotta's meek husband, Alain Cholet, is given a droll and often hilarious turn by Robert Anthony Jones. In a flashback that shows how Erik came to be who he is, a young actor, Nolan Lyons (who alternates with Justin Cimmino), is heartbreaking in his portrayal of Erik as a boy, happy until he catches a reflection of his face. Mr. Ruggiero's staging of young Erik's anguish - a stylized rocking back and forth as he sits on his knees, covers his face and cries - echoes the older Erik's movements as he wonders whether to reveal his face to Christine. The consequence of that decision is part of what makes "Phantom" engrossing to the end. "Phantom," by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston, plays through Sept. 9 at the Gateway Playhouse, 215 South Country Road, Bellport. Information: (631) 286-1133 or gatewayplayhouse.org.