By Linda Winer

IN A PIG'S VALISE: A Hard-Boiled Yarn with Music.' Musical with book and lyrics by Eric Overmyer, music by August Darnell, directed and choreographed by Graciela Danielle. With Nathan Lane, Ada Maris, Reg E. Cathey, Charlie Lagond, Michael McCormick, Jonathan Freeman, Thom Sesma, Lauren Tom, Dian Sorel. Sets by Bob Shaw, costumes by Jeanne Button, lights by Peggy Eisenhauer, with Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Second Stage, Broadway at 76th Street, Manhattan.

"IN A PIG'S Valise" has all the promise of a great piece of junk theater - a goofy, off-beat musical that could scale the tipsy heights of "Little Shop of Horrors" or "The Rocky Horror Show."

There is a script by Eric Overmyer, the theater's new master of semantic machinations; music by August Darnell, a.k.a. the Kid in the quasi-Carib-pop band of Kid Creole and the Coconuts; direction by Graciela Daniele, who choreographed sublime silliness in "Pirates of Penzance" and put passion in "Tango Apacionado."

Mysteriously, and unfortunately, the private-eye spoof that opened last night at Second Stage is a great little junk musical in search of staging and music. There is much to treasure in Overmyer's glitteringly wise and foolish "lingo noir" script and in Nathan Lane's performance as the simile-crazed low-life gumshoe. How enjoyable one finds the show, however, depends on one's willingness to overlook music that is uninspired by its lyrics; lame production numbers that are more stupid than stylish; more than a few queasy slips in the intentionally tacky tone; and one of the most uneven casts ever put together by this prestigious theater.

But, first, the good parts. Lane, who made audiences sit up and say, "Who is that toad?" years ago when he played a toad in the short-lived "Wind in the Willows," has been stealing shows ever since. Here, he is James Taxi, a wheezing, bemused dumpling of a detective in a rumpled Columbo trench, who drinks Kahlua with Maalox and is obsessed with the mechanisms of Chandleresque film-noir. Or, as Overmyer has him confide to us, happily standing aside the plot to "cogitate a capella": "we are all prisoners of genre."

He's also prisoner of a story set at the Heartbreak Hotel, corner of Neon and Lonely, where a dish named Dolores Con Leche (Sorrows with Milk) works as an ethnic folk dancer - Norwegian, Slavic, South Philly. Dolores, played with just enough Latin bombshell-ism by Ada Maris, believes someone is stealing her dreams. Taxi, whom she called when intending to call a cab, sympathizes: "Dreams, the underwear of the mind . . . too personal to steal."

So far, so much fun. Taxi explains to Dolores the superiority of similes over metaphors and why his voiceovers - his VO, not his MO - are necessary to pass on exposition. Meanwhile, a heady saxophone (played by Charlie Lagond, the only member of the Creole band who comes down from its perch to appear onstage) is laying on the atmosphere: "Hard-boiled tip number one," says Taxi, "Trust your underscoring."

Too soon, however, we learn we cannot trust the scoring enough. Darnell, an extraordinarly talented composer who favors '40s mysterioso in his own style, would seem to have been the perfect match here. But except for "If I Was a Fool to Dream," the only song not serving as parody, the numbers are shapeless and repetitive. Whether salsa, funk or jazz, they never develop or keep up with Overmyer's elevated sense of fun. The titles are terrific - "Kiss Me Deadly" and, especially the summary, "Doin' the Denouement," but Darnell does not seem to have hooked into them. Also, given the innocence of the show, the raunchy "Put Your Legs on My Shoulders" is a jarring mistake.

Faults are also on the shoulders of director-choreographer Daniele. Except for the pithy menace of Bop Op (Reg E. Cathey), the denizens of the Heartbreak are of fatally variable inspiration. Lauren Tom has spunk and talent as one of the back-up Balkans; others can sing but not dance, dance but not sing. This is a problem in a musical.

But, always, there is Taxi, getting narrative motion sickness from the attempts to connect to the greater American myth machine. And Overmyer, who makes us fascinated with his fascination with language, making a silk purse out of a pig's valise. One can only wish that Second Stage, known for giving failed plays a second chance, could take a second stab at his.

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