POP MUSIC REVIEW : REDDY DOES HER VOCAL AEROBICS

There was a kind of full circle appropriateness to Helen Reddy’s opening at the Westwood Playhouse Tuesday night during the 20th anniversary week of the National Organization for Women.

It was, after all, Reddy’s breezily declamatory song “I Am Woman” that became a virtual anthem for the feminist movement in the early ‘70s. Appropriately, she made it the climax piece in her surprisingly brief program.

Unfortunately, the evening provided few other grounds for celebration. Reddy’s early career had suggested that she might mature into a performer with a broad range of emotional expression. But at the peak of her career, Reddy produced little more than an assembly line of middle-of-the-road singles.

Reddy’s performance Tuesday--her first extended Los Angeles engagement in three years--revived the mechanics of her Top-40 style. Pacing the stage in a restless display of rudimentary choreographic moves, she attacked each song with the no-nonsense energy and deadly repetitiousness of an aggressive aerobics instructor.

Everything received the same treatment--from old hits like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Delta Dawn” and “Angie, Baby” to the newer (for Reddy) “Hold Me til the Morning Comes” and “Lost in the Shuffle.” She seemed to approach each song as a physical challenge, rather than as musical and emotional storytelling.

Too bad. Given the fact that Reddy’s voice is in fine shape and that she has the professional skills to do almost anything she wants, one might have expected more--in quantity, and especially in quality.

Reddy continues at the Westwood Playhouse through Sunday.