A modest Kimmel space hosts a modest revue

If retro suits you, you can't get more old-fashioned than

Give My Regards to Broadway

, the show that opened Tuesday for a monthlong run at Innovations, the wide black-box studio downstairs at the Kimmel Center.

It's a revue in the old sense - no pizzazzy through-line and barely any narrative. The two-act medley features time-honored songs grouted by archival multimedia images that begin in 1905 and end with World War II. Despite the title, not all the songs are products of Broadway. But you know them all from the catalog of Gershwin, Berlin, Cohan and others - think "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" or "Charleston" or "You're the Top."

The show is dressed in old-time elegance - a black-tie affair for the wonderfully hardworking pianist (John Baxindine) and three song-and-dance men: Randy Davis, who at one point does a swell tap-dance on steps; strong tenor Joe Jackson; and the charming Sonny Leo. Their three female counterparts - Amanda Danskin, Kelley Faulkner and Stacy Moscotti Smith, performing as well together as they do solo - have clear show-tune voices, and wear black dresses that sway with each move.

There's not much to

Give My Regards to Broadway

, a random jukebox selection from an era before jukeboxes. Peter John Rios' engaging tap choreography greatly enhances it; the show bursts with tap solidly delivered by all six performers. One number, "Alexander's Ragtime Band," is downright inspired, and the rest, under Tony Braithwaite's direction, is best when those taps are clicking.

Give My Regards to Broadway

ends on an awkwardly abrupt note of patriotism: We've reached World War II, so it's time for a full-house rendition of "God Bless America"! This disjointed sensibility

runs through the well-meaning production, which feels like a cabaret act hoisted onto a too-large stage and stretched into a revue. It would be more impressive if it unfolded among us, in Innovation's audience space.

The show was conceived by producer Howard Perloff (

Tony n' Tina's Wedding

and Broadway's

Torch Song Trilogy

), who is filling this heretofore underused Kimmel theater with four shows this season as a part of the center's Broadway series. And that's Broadway loosely, in this case: The Kimmel would do well not to oversell a modest show like this one by grouping it in a series with national-tour productions of

Legally Blonde, A Chorus Line, Spring Awakening

and other Very Big Deals. The Innovations space was made for smaller efforts.

Through Feb. 1 at the Kimmel Center's Innovation Studio, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets: $47. Information: 215-731-3333 or

» READ MORE: www.kimmelcenter.org/broadway

.