Sensitive fans of musical theater, perhaps you should skip this article. I’m about to argue something that will certainly make you gasp:
I hate “A Chorus Line.”

I’ve seen half a dozen productions of the show — from lowly community college and dinner theater stagings to the latest, Phoenix Theatre’s professional spin — and none, not even PT’s, has stopped the nagging irritation that nips at my brain and prevents me from suspending disbelief over the show’s central conceit: A chorus audition for a Broadway house in the mid-’70s that, thanks to a nosy director with the kooky idea of going all Barbara Walters on his unwitting dancers, goes from dance-fever sweatshop to jejune group therapy faster than you can spell “schmaltz.”

By all accounts, I should like “A Chorus Line.” It’s composer Marvin Hamlisch at his most melodically playful (Is that some Burt Bacharach I note?). It’s a chance for gay actors to loosen up and, since they’re playing au naturel for the most part, let the sibilant esses fly. And with the thinnest of story to get in the way, it allows for unadulterated globs of song and dance.

But, alas, I don’t. I like the concept of a behind-the-scenes musical about as much as I like teppanyaki — which is to say, not at all. I want a meta-musical like I want a meta-meal. Michael Bennett conceived the show around a series of interviews with chorus members, and as its fictionalized characters submit to the director’s series of annoyingly probing questions, we are subjected to misty-eyed odes to the magic of theater, nervous riffs on audition anxiety, plus the requisite personal stories of early child abuse, coming out and unhappy home life.

As a construct, it feels forced — as if someone tried to fashion a musical around Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” (Which, hey, sounds like an idea.) With all props to Hamlisch, his score for “A Chorus Line” remains horribly dated, what with its disco tempo propulsed by a flurry of high-hat drumming; it’s almost as cheesy as Robert Kolby Harper’s Fred-from-“Scooby Doo” outfit in the PT production. Even with classic numbers such as “One” and “What I Did for Love,” what “A Chorus Line” is selling, I ain’t buying.

It’s a shame, then, because PT’s production boasts some fine performances and dancing (choreographed by director Roger Castellano), supported offstage by a tight little big band. Local favorites step to the black stage’s toe line and give solid performances, from Harper (as the flamboyant Bobby) to April Monte (who, as Diana, belts a gorgeous “What I Did for Love”) to Shawna Quain (as ballet girl Maggie), who’s popped up in more professional productions of late, first as background performer but inching more and more toward featured talent.

The show’s only real flaws are uninspired blocking — it’s a tough show in which to break the routine of dance-stop-talk-sing — and its Cassie, played by Melinda Parrett, who fails to dazzle with a limp take on “The Music and the Mirror.”

If, like me, you’ve found yourself unable to fall under the charms of “A Chorus Line,” Phoenix Theatre’s production won’t offer much in the way of proselytization. Unmoved by what had preceded it, I found myself feeling even a bit offended by the obscene glitz of the finale, in which the show’s standard rotating mirrors turn to reveal a panoply of screaming lights and the cast of dancers emerges from the wings dressed in matching gold outfits to dance the requisite spinning circles and kick line into infinity. I thought, Isn’t that just a bit much?

Of course, I’m in the minority here, loathing “A Chorus Line” amid a full house giving rousing standing ovations to one of the most popular musicals of all time. Should my critic’s badge be rescinded?