On Christmas Day of 1940, first-nighters unwrapped a gift that keeps on giving from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart — a music box stuffed with soon-to-be-standards like "I Could Write a Book," "You Mustn't Kick It Around," "Zip," "In Our Little Den of Iniquity" and that piece de resistance with the everlasting lilt, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" — only the gift didn't go down well back then because it came with an unsavory tale of an opportunistic rouι who turns club owner in Chicago of the '30s, through the love of a good (albeit, married and older) woman sponsoring him.

The book — adapted by O'Hara from his own short story but bearing the fingerprints of George Abbott, who produced and directed — has always held this sublime score back, one way or another: Either it was shocking then, or it is "go, girl" naοve now.

Many have tried to surmount this problematic storyline over the years in Joey's numerous reincarnations. Billy Wilder, who understood such relationships ("Sunset Boulevard"), entertained the idea of doing a movie of Pal Joey in the mid-'50s with Mae West and Marlon Brando. When it did reach the screen in 1957, Rita Hayworth, 39, and Frank Sinatra, 42, made the older woman-younger man taboo nil and void.

Now, for its current rendition, this generation gap has been rectified with a vengeance by adapter Richard Greenberg — and an act of God. It toplines Stockard Channing, 64, and Matthew Risch, 27. Jersey Boys Tony winner Christian Hoff was to have had the title role, but a leg injury sidelined him and set his understudy up for stardom. Critics were kept at bay an additional week, but the after-party booked for the Marriott Marquis' eighth-floor party arena Dec. 11 went ahead as originally planned.

"A raw kid from the chorus" (as they called 'em in 42nd Street), Risch is now living one of Broadway's most popular myths — indeed, he's proof positive that such things actually happen. "This is my third Broadway show. I was ensemble in Chicago and Legally Blonde — featured ensemble," he backed up to add with emphasis. The very fact he made it to the finish line, he said, was because he got "nothing but company support. I couldn't have done it without that. I wouldn't be standing on my feet right now if it weren't for them. They were absolutely giving and gracious throughout."

At the end of the day — this day — the thing that joyed director Joe Mantello most about the show was the company's united front. "Christian hurting himself was very sad for all of us," he said, "but I'm incredibly proud of the way they rallied 'round Matt when this unfortunate setback occurred. They reinvigorated the rehearsal process by just throwing their support behind him. It brought us all together."

With the show already in previews, he didn't have the option or luxury of casting about for a star replacement — so he went with the understudy. "We didn't have enough time. Christian injured himself on a Friday night, Matt went in on Saturday, we waited a couple of days to see what was going to happen to Christian, but we just had to keep moving. By then, Matt had more than proven himself."

Greenberg couldn't say for sure how he altered O'Hara's original book. "This is, fundamentally, a new book," he declared. "I wrote it first 17 or 18 years ago for a production at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. This time, I worked off of my previous book — so I don't remember the show's original book that well any longer."

Talk about putting a note in a bottle and shoving it out to sea, his script traveled the long and circuitous route to Broadway: "I started it in early 1990, then it just started appearing and disappearing, there'd be a reading, all of a sudden an interview. The rights traveled among thousands of people till finally it came back to me when Joe became interested in it. Several books were floating around, and he chose mine."

The three key ladies in Joey's life — haughty socialite Vera Simpson (Channing), hard-boiled chorine Gladys Bumps (Martha Plimpton) and sweet young non-pro Linda English (Jenny Fellner) — have, courtesy of Greenberg, been allotted a full quiver of quips to ward off Joey's sleazy advances. In the case of Channing, whose imperiousness is on such a hilariously high plane, whole sentences aren't needed. She handily wins exit applause with the inflection of a single, archly pitched word.

"I think of her in amoral ways," Channing said of her Vera. "She may not have a lot of morals, but she's got a lot of ethics. She's tough, and she learns her lesson, but she has her strength and her brains. I tell you what: I sure wouldn't want to cross her."

The truly glamorous presence she presents on stage she credits to (1) her hair stylist, the inimitable Paul Huntley ("There are various styles for various times — she's formal in some, gloriously untidy in others," Huntley said. "She goes through several looks."), and (2) her costume designer, William Ivey Long, who has beaded her a Dietrichesque/Jean Louis dazzler for her entrance, slinking down a long spiral staircase shimmering in copper and silver sequins ("Bravo Jean Louis! All my life I've been dying to use that design idea for a show," Long gleefully confessed, "and I found it, and I did it!").

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All this, and she gets to sing "Bewitched" three times. "To do it justice, I try to treat it as if people, hopefully, are hearing it for the first time. It's such a gorgeous song."

Plimpton, who has concealed her already highly advanced musical chops until now, really goes to town with "Zip," a production number in which her club singer, Gladys, plays a girl reporter recounting the intellectuals she has chatted up over the years, like Schopenhauer and Gypsy Rose Lee. Modestly, Plimpton passed the credit along to choreographer Graciela Daniele and conductor Paul Gemignani for making it happen. Whoever, her "Zip" is a trip.

The aging, been-around-the-block, tough-as-nail chorus girl is also something she hasn't done before. "I found her in Richard Greenberg's book and in John O'Hara's story," Plimpton said, "and I'd be lying if there wasn't a little Joan Blondell in there." And — from the look of her close-cropped, peroxide-blonde wig — Gladys George.

Fellner confessed she had no idea about the backstory of her Linda English. "I read the script for the first time at the audition, and Richard had already worked on it," she said. "That was nice because what I had was fresh. I didn't have any idea of what it used to be." Her training film — the 1957 flick — was no help. (Her role was turned into a showgirl so Kim Novak could sing "My Funny Valentine" from a different Rodgers and Hart show.) "I was, like, 'Wow! This is nothing like what we're doing.'" Continued...