It's easy to see and hear echoes of "My Fair Lady" in Lerner and Loewe's "Gigi." It has the same frothy period costumes, a remarkably similar transforming heroine, and a discounted romance that simmers below the surface of the action.

Undeniably, "My Fair Lady" has better music, although "Gigi's" title song won an Oscar and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," "The Night They Invented Champagne," and "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" are all solid show tunes. Yet it took 15 years to make the trip from movie to stage — where it never reached the same success as its famed predecessor.

The Diamond Head Theatre production, directed by John Rampage with music by Laurence Paxton, gives us a good opportunity to decide why it didn't.

The basic plot must be handled with a great deal of charm to avoid turning sordid, since the title character jumps from puberty to courtesan without any intermediate stops. Only the outside hope of marriage rescues Gigi from going directly from childhood to embittered kept woman — and that's a tenuous plot line on which to build a musical romance.

The songs and the costumes help a lot, as does a liberal application of soft soap. These characters are fluffed up into being charming even while negotiating the contract that will turn Gigi into a paid mistress.

Comic irony softens the situation with lines such as, "God made woman and then he rested — a pattern that has been followed ever since."

To her credit, Candes Meijide Gentry sings beautifully in the title role. There's a crystalline purity of tone that makes her voice expressive, stageworthy and easy on the ears. And while she plays a one-note character in a sailor suit for the entire first act, we begin to see some depth as she matures in Act 2.

But the script pushes the character hard and fast, forcing her into a tightly wound persona that even her lover finds unappealing. Only the nonverbal final scene allows her to mercifully collapse into normalcy.

With some experience and coaching, we could see Gentry as an excellent Eliza Doolittle or a stunning Gypsy Rose Lee.

Scott Wallace does well enough as Gaston (the Louis Jourdan part) that we forgive his character for being a self-centered stuffed shirt and Gary Morris is thoroughly charming as Honore (the role most associated with Maurice Chevalier.)

Terri Madden is convincing as Gigi's grandmother, and Devon Guard is formidable as a forbidding dowager aunt.

Paxton gets a wonderfully full sound from his large chorus (with Bob Malis in a featured bit as a telephone installer) and Rampage's choreography has them doing waltzes, polkas, and cancans with great flair.

But its Karen Wolfe's costuming that gets the big prize and that makes most of Act 1 worth watching. Hats, bustles and ruffles fill the stage in a color-coordinated extravaganza that approximates 1901 with a purity worthy of Disney. Set designer Wally White frames the rich stage picture with borders of leaves and stylized grape clusters.

All this is pleasant to see and hear. But while we might "thank heaven for little girls," only the French could nonchalantly explain why "Gigi" is a Cinderella story.