Christina Applegate has taken method acting to unprecedented levels of dedication in the new Broadway revival of “Sweet Charity.” She plays Charity Hope Valentine, the gullible but kind dance-hall hostess who’s waiting for her Prince Charming to ride along. Along the way, Charity encounters immense difficulties – so many that her signature number is “I’m the Bravest Individual.” To prepare for this song about overcoming challenges, about moving ahead in spite of pain, Ms. Applegate broke a foot during out-of-town previews. That is dedication.

Was it worth it, her gruesome accident, the show’s cancellation and reinstatement, the tedious backstage Sturm und Drang that captivated the fraction of the theater community that craves such drama the way Audrey II craves blood? Sure, why not. At its best, Walter Bobbie’s revival of the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields-Neil Simon musical can be funny and pleasantly diverting; at its worst, it’s uninvolving. Not once did I feel the urge to bolt up the aisle of the Hirschfeld, shredding my notebook as I ran; more than once, I saw something that excited me. Undoubtedly it should be better than it is; undoubtedly it could be one hell of a lot worse.

Forgive the evenhandedness, but this seems the only sane reaction to the kind of Broadway revival typified by “Sweet Charity.” Bob Fosse created the show and tailored its material to suit the brilliant talents of Gwen Verdon. But the new paradigm favors salable adequacy over uncompromising brilliance. This revival has been tailored to suit a celebrity who is talented enough to get by, and famous enough to open the show. Without a dazzling song-and-dance actress at its center, the show will only be so good. To be sure, “Sweet Charity” is hardly a treasure of the American stage, a piece likely to be desecrated by a movie personality; it’s not “The Glass Menagerie.” The real difficulty – and this is a subject for another day – is what Broadway loses by continually importing Hollywood stars for prime opportunities like this one, instead of creating stars from within – the happy consequences of which we might call the Sutton Foster effect.

Ms. Applegate does not astonish, except with her courage. She has a small, pretty voice. It comes up short now and then, but after a couple of years of listening to actors who try to prove their mettle by undoing the theater’s masonry with their belting, there are certainly worse sins than that one. She’s a fair dancer, too, with genuine stage presence – a pleasant surprise from someone best known for that touchstone of the ’90s,”Married With Children.” Her best assets are charm, comic sense, and golden good looks, a combination that will Get You Places.

In fact, Ms. Applegate fares better in her book scenes than in the musical numbers. It helps – helps a very great deal – that these scenes tend to be opposite Broadway pros like Janine LaManna and Kyra DaCosta, who are caustic and funny as Charity’s fellow dance-hall hostesses, and the irreplaceable Ernie Sabella, who, as the querulous hall proprietor, looks and sounds like a balloon being strangled.

Then there is Denis O’Hare, who plays Charity’s potential savior, Oscar Lindquist. I hope the producers remember Mr. O’Hare fondly on his birthday and all other major gift-giving occasions for the next little while, because he carries long stretches of this show. Is there an actor on Broadway today with more exuberance? Mr. O’Hare gets a laugh more or less any time he wants one. He dances right to the edge of excess and mugging, but never falls in. A late scene in which Charity and Oscar discuss their plans for the future takes on real emotional weight. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In the midst of all the Broadway brass and flash, someone was really acting.

Mr. Bobbie’s designers, too, have the right sense of scale. Two years ago, set designer Scott Pask and lighting designer Brian MacDevitt collaborated on the aquatic opulence of “Nine.” They outdo themselves in scale and flair here. Mr. Pask’s sets – a movie star’s apartment, the dance hall, a rooftop – manage to tower without feeling unwieldy. Mr. MacDevitt’s lighting creates an extraordinary sense of space, of volume. Then there are his flourishes: an orange Rothkoesque painting in a movie star’s apartment turns into a pulsing light source; sprays of light pierce the air, bringing a dash of Weimar to otherwise sunny ’60s New York.

Wayne Cilento has the unenviable – or is it extremely enviable? – task of choreographing a show created by Fosse. “Rich Man’s Frug,” an angular, almost violent number at Club Pompeii, had terrific manic energy, but “Rhythm of Life,” an all-but-nonsensical number at Oscar’s club/church, never snapped into place. Some of Mr. Simon’s jokes are showing their age, but Coleman’s music is full of high-rolling bombast. The percussive brass in the overture sounded like perfect Las Vegas. Most of what follows looks and sounds, for better and worse, like perfect Broadway.

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