A slower Vereen still has plenty of energy, magic

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They just don’t make ’em like that anymore.

And even if they did, anyone trying to follow in Ben Vereen’s footsteps would have a tough time keeping up with the original.

The triple-threat dynamo brought his one-man show, aptly titled “Steppin’ Out with Ben Vereen,” to The Smith Center for the Performing Arts’ Reynolds Hall Saturday night.

And while he was the first to admit he’s lost a step – strolling onstage with a cane and acknowledging that, a few months after knee surgery, “you won’t be seeing me doing any more cartwheels or splits” – Vereen deftly demonstrated that he doesn’t need cartwheels and splits to entrance an audience.

An opening video montage set the stage, hitting career highlights from Broadway’s “Pippin” to TV’s “Roots” to the big screen’s “All That Jazz.”

But once Vereen slithered into “Magic to Do” – one of the knockout numbers from his Tony-winning “Pippin” role – it became clear he took the song’s lyrics to heart: “We’ve got magic to do, just for you …”

Said magic included multiple references to such Broadway triumphs as “Jesus Christ Superstar” (via a dramatic mash-up of the title song and “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”) and “Wicked,” where he made heroine Elphaba’s soaring declaration of independence, “Defying Gravity,” his own.

As a dancer , Vereen’s hardly the gravity-defying dynamo he once was. How could he be? But his fluid stage moves prove he can still slither and sway – one moment a disarming snake charmer, the next moment a sinuous snake. As Vereen himself quipped at one point, “Not bad for a guy with knee operations.”

But the years have only deepened Vereen’s vocals – sometimes literally and always emotionally, as Vereen ranged from Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Getting to Know You”) to Elton John (“Your Song”).

There were snappy nods to Fats Waller (“The Joint Is Jumpin’ ” – with a slight shift in setting from “Harlem way” to “Vegas way”) and poignant reflections on the passage of time (Charles Aznavour’s “I Didn’t See the Time Go By”).

Speaking of time going by, Vereen punctuated his jazzmatazz numbers with warm, chatty recollections – punctuated by self-deprecating references to such relics as record players, telegrams and pay telephones. (“Remember phone booths? And dial-up?”)

He also saluted creative forces who played major roles in his own life, from director-choreographer Bob Fosse, who cast him in a Las Vegas production of “Sweet Charity” (which led to “Pippin” and “All That Jazz”) to “a good friend of mine and yours, Mr. Frank Sinatra.”

Vereen closed the first half of “Steppin’ Out” with a powerful rendition of Sinatra’s “My Way,” then began the show’s second half with a salute to another Rat Pack icon: Sammy Davis Jr., whom Vereen understudied in the musical “Golden Boy.”

Although “I cannot do the man,” Vereen confessed, “I can give you the essence of the man and the joy he brought into our lives.”

Echoing Davis’ “admiration and respect he had for his musicians,” Vereen shared the spotlight with his backup players in a capella performances with drummer Marc Dicciani , bassist Thomas Kennedy, drummer Aaron Vereen (“Papa’s proud,” Vereen said of his “baby boy”) and pianist and conductor David Loeb , director of jazz studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (The UNLV contingent also included a hot horn section made up of students, alumni and instructor.)

It may have provided a welcome breather for Vereen, but the extended sequence wore out its welcome (with this audience member, anyway) before it concluded with an all-too-appropriate “At Last.”

And Vereen’s occasional heartfelt efforts to play cheerleader for the arts – particularly during a revamped “Stand By Me,” when he urged audience members to, literally, “Stand Up for the Arts” – proved a fleeting moment of awkwardness in a show otherwise distinguished by energetic grace.

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.