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Czechoslovakian-born Tom Stoppard had had one big Broadway triumph, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (1967), when his "Jumpers" first reached the Great White Way in 1974 with Brian Bedford and Jill Clayburgh.

It collapsed after six weeks under the weight of its intellectual pretentiousness.

Since then, Stoppard's resume has lengthened considerably ("Travesties," "Night and Day," "The Real Thing"). Even theaters that ordinarily might be wary of his work have staged his delightful "The Real Inspector Hound." And among his many screenplays, "Shakespeare in Love" did more for his popularity than anything.

The National Theatre of Great Britain had such success a year ago with a revival of "Jumpers" that producers felt emboldened to try Broadway again, bringing over the leading players from London and supplementing them with American actors in the title -- if secondary -- roles.

They were so confident they announced a 20-week engagement through Aug. 22 at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

David Leveaux, who directed Broadway's awesome new revival of "Fiddler on the Roof," directed "Jumpers," too, on Vicki Mortimer's revolving Art Deco set.

It contains a striking, quintessentially British portrayal of the verbose bore George by Simon Russell Beale, but the dryly farcical play still strikes enough theatergoers as impenetrable that a notable quantity of seats occupied during the first act are empty after intermission.

The eight title characters are yellow-jumpsuited amateur acrobats who call themselves the Incredible Radical Liberal Jumpers. Carnegie Mellon University alum Michael Hollick is among them.

They're philosophy professors who appear at the beginning and regularly thereafter as metaphors for the circus of life, looking foolish doing nothing well.

One of the eight, Duncan McFee (Hillel Meltzer), is slain during the opening scene party, but we never learn by whom.

George, a professor of moral philosophy with an imperishable faith in mankind, rambles throughout as he prepares a speech on ethics. In a seeming stream-of-consciousness, he discourses on infinity, the origins of being, metaphysics, the existence of God, existentialism, aesthetics, Betrand Russell, logical positivism and relativism. Oh, and the moon landing.

Fair game, all. But they're not integral to the comedy drama so much as they undigested theories trotted out by a heady young playwright overly eager to regurgitate his study and research.

About the time The Secretary (Eliza Lumley) disrobes on a flying trapeze, George's amply endowed and sometimes topless wife Dorothy (Essie Davi), purposefully called Dotty, hides the jumper's corpse in her bedroom closet.

She recalls her days as the first lady of the musical theater, not that she can find her way through a lyric of "Fly Me to the Moon," "Blue Moon" or "Shine on Harvest Moon."

She does, though, entertain in bed her psychiatrist, Archie Jumper (Nicky Henson), who also is vice chancellor of her husband's university.

A Cockney detective named Bones (Nicholas Woodeson) arrives to investigate the murder and makes no headway, which is understandable, if tedious. The building's caretaker, Crouch (John Rogan), provides no useful clues.

George, oblivious to the implications of nearby behavior, has retreated from his inert marriage into a world of theories and intellectual vanity.

Now, as then, "Jumpers" is no less pretentious for being cerebral and good-natured. For all of its puns and epigrams, it's a cold, clinical farce, unappetizing for all of its theatrical elan.

"Does God exist?" George wonders. "Is God?" ... And then, "Are God?"

Yeah, well, Are play?

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