To its credit, “Seussical” does an admirable job of weaving together many of the good doctor’s books in a way that’s true to Seuss without being held captive by him. The main characters are Horton the egg-hatching elephant (Kevin Chamberlin), vain Gertrude McFuzz (Janine LaManna) and JoJo (Anthony Blair Hall), the tyke who saves Whoville by yelling “Yopp!” Their original stories are all there. But they bend and fold into each other–Yertle the Turtle presiding over Horton’s insanity trial?–in inventive (if occasionally confusing) ways. And then there’s The Cat in the Hat (David Shiner). Rather than being confined to one story, The Cat pops up throughout the show. He comments on the action–not unlike the emcee in “Cabaret”–sometimes in the guise of a talk-show host, a traffic reporter or an auctioneer at “Seussiby’s.” By the time he climbs into the balcony to spray the audience with water, you start to wish this cat wasn’t such an eager beaver.

That’s the problem with “Seussical”– it tries so hard to have fun that the fun often feels synthetic. In that respect, it’s not unlike the Hollywood blockbuster “The Grinch,” though the $10.5 million “Seussical” could use some of the movie’s visual flair. The genius of Dr. Seuss is how effortlessly his rhymes and stories worked themselves into sweet morality tales. Too often the show goes for the hard sell, whether it’s a mirror ball, an overpopulated stage or that surest sign of Broadway desperation: a large woman who belts out a bluesy song that doesn’t really fit the tone of the show.

The scrambled vision isn’t surprising. “Seussical” has weathered numerous changes since a rocky Boston tryout this fall, including a new director and costume designer and a radically altered book. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of good stuff in “Seussical.” Stephen Flaherty’s lilting, hummable music and Lynn Ahrens’s gently rhyming lyrics are the perfect Seuss soundtrack. And Chamberlin is so winning as Horton, you want to hug him. Wearing the show’s most underwhelming costume, he creates the earnest elephant with little more than a puppy-dog face and a sweet voice. In one duet with JoJo, a lovely ode to loneliness called “Alone in the Universe,” Chamberlin singlehandedly provides the kind of emotional depth the rest of the show lacks. Unfortunately, he’s just a hint of the places “Seussical” could have gone.