"After Midnight" Harks Back to the Cotton Club Days Is great tap dance on Broadway a thing of the past? In one sense, apparently not. "After Midnight," the jazz revue that opened at the Brooks Atkinson this month, showcases some of the best, most state-of-the-art tapping presented in a Broadway theater in many a year. Funny thing is, it's set in 1932. The show has been deservedly praised for its large and talented cast of singers and dancers and especially for its band, the 16 musicians called the Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars who bring to vibrant life the music of Duke Ellington and some of his peers from the 1920s and "30s. But as an aficionado of tap and a student of its history, I found myself wondering what it might mean that just about the only way that virtuosic jazz tap has made it onto Broadway in the 21st century is in a vehicle that purports to jump back eight decades. I should point out that "After Midnight" isn't a tap-heavy show. Of 26 numbers, only four feature tap, and these are spaced out. Of 25 performers, only five tap. But two of these - Jared Grimes and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards - are two of the finest tap dancers around. I've seen them many times before, but mostly in the specialized context of tap concerts and tap festivals and tap-centric productions, the separate world where the greatest tap dancers largely keep to themselves these days. One function of "After Midnight" is to restore them to an older, broader context. In the "20s and "30s, tap was a part of many more shows than it is now, but it was only a part. "After Midnight" is loosely based on the kind of revue you might have seen in a Harlem nightclub like the Cotton Club, back when such revues proliferated and tap specialists shared the stage with other acts. In its treatment of dance acts, the choreography, by Warren Carlyle, who also directs, is sly about historical accuracy. Mr. Carlyle reproduces one of the few Cotton Club numbers captured on film, a routine in which five men dance as one, as if stuck together in a queue. But he elaborates it nicely - the original number is thin - and he effectively juxtaposes its restraint with the goofiness of another novelty dance, the self-explanatory Peckin. The dancing of the great Earl Tucker, known as Snakehips, probably could not be reproduced by anybody else and it's unlikely that it could be improved upon. Swiveling his toes, Tucker sent waves rolling out from his pelvis, swelling undulations that fractured his body into zigzags, and that was just to start. In Tucker's place, Mr. Carlyle offers modern-day equivalents. Virgil Gadson and Julius Chisolm specialize in the kind of street dancing - gliding footwork, body parts knocked out of joint - that makes them Tucker's heirs. The way that these young men do their own thing, precisely timed to period-perfect arrangements of jazz, exemplifies this production's appealingly relaxed attitude to the past. In this regard, the tap numbers are more mixed. The first one is a double act, in the tradition of the Nicholas Brothers. But though Phillip Attmore and Daniel J. Watts flash up their tapping with the requisite splits and acrobatics, they lack the daring and rhythmic verve of their predecessors. Their routine is typical of Mr. Carlyle's choreography in being skillfully constructed but not too original or imaginative. I know of tap dancers who could knock a number like that out of the park, but I'm not sure that Mr. Carlyle would want them. He runs a very tight ship, and has a keen sense of the larger arc. More spectacular dancers in that slot might not leave enough room for the rest of the show to build. This is why Mr. Grimes gets the solo spot leading into the group finale. There his showstopping tap doesn't stop the show. It's his role to astonish, and he does. But what's interesting here, too, is how he does not attempt any historical pastiche, like a Bill Robinson routine. He dances to Ellington like Jared Grimes. What that means is an alternation between the mind-boggling footwork that has escalated precipitously among the tap dancers of his generation and more large-scaled dancing - smooth spins and stage-crossing stuff - that absorbs tap tradition while also incorporating hip-hop. Mr. Grimes doesn't look historical. Ms. Sumbry-Edwards, the show's other tap virtuoso, seemed more hemmed in. Her tap number comes in the middle of the show, and though it's nice to hear her sing a bit, and though she fills the space she's allotted with brilliance, it's a disappointment when Mr. Attmore and Mr. Watts join her. What could be extraordinary turns cute and contained. But maybe Mr. Carlyle knows what he's doing. From a dance critic's perspective, what's most impressive about "After Midnight" isn't the choreography as choreography so much as how the whole show dances without becoming a dance show. The simple motions Mr. Carlyle gives his singers are where he demonstrates some of his greatest ability. Everything has its place. Somewhere along the line, for reasons to various to list, the tradition of tap to which Mr. Grimes and Ms. Sumbry-Edwards belong lost its place in this kind of entertainment, once its home. Their kind of tap was last on Broadway in 1999, when "Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk," choreographed by and starring Savion Glover, closed. Since then, the dream of many dancers in that show or who came up after has been to return in a production like that, a tap show that expands tap's possibilities. Maybe that wasn't the right dream, or the only one to have. Maybe what was needed to convince Broadway producers that tap has a place in the present was to remind them of the place it had in the past.