If you’re going to revive an old-fashioned chestnut of a romantic comedy like Abe Burrows’ Cactus Flower, the least you can do is deliver a staging with some sparks. They are sadly lacking in the Off-Broadway revival currently on view at the Westside Theatre, which resembles a summer stock production, only without the usual B-level stars.

Instead, the producers have cast the decidedly unfunny Maxwell Caulfield in the lead role of Julian, the womanizing middle-aged dentist who pretends to be married in order to keep his younger girlfriend’s romantic aspirations at bay. The cast also includes soap opera veteran Lois Robbins as the motherly receptionist who harbors a not-so-secret yen for her boss and young Jenni Barber as the frustrated girlfriend. Suffice it to say that none of them manages to erase the memories of Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and the Oscar-winning Goldie Hawn in the 1969 film version, which itself was no classic.

Burrows adapted his play from a vintage French comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. The storyline has indeed proved durable, as it also served as the basis for the recent Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston film Just Go With It.

With snappy direction and inspired performers, the play might still prove diverting fun, especially for the matinee lady crowd. But director Michael Bush’s leaden production produces nary a single laugh over the course of its overlong two-and-a-half hours.  

Caulfield displays no comic chops whatsoever—he can’t even pull off the called-for double take when Julian spots his receptionist sporting the mink stole that he had given to his girlfriend. Robbins is suitably stuffy in the play’s first half, but is less convincing when required to convey her character’s transformation into giddy sexuality. And Barber, while appealing, is so similar in looks and style to Hawn that the results are merely distracting.

Add to that a supporting cast who ham it unmercifully in the smaller roles and an awkward, heavily wood-paneled set that fails to suggest the required multiple locations. The results feel like cheap champagne that has long lost its fizz. 

Westside Theatre, 407 W. 43rd St. 212-239-6200. www.Telecharge.com