One of the saddest sections of Baltimore got a big dose of ‘happy’ yesterday, as the performance-art group Fluid Movement assembled dancing bags of Utz potato chips, a hairy-chested Santa and roller-skating “ladies who lunch” for a madcap show celebrating the city’s one-time shopping hub, the Westside.

In front of a cheering audience of nearly 300 in the vacant ground floor of the former Stewart’s department store building, the roller-dancing performers paid tribute to Frank Sinatra’s big-band debut at the Hippodrome Theatre, the delights to be carried out in Styrofoam containers from the Lexington Market (“Crabs! Lake trout!) and the swirly-skirted couture to be found at Hutzler’s and the other grand downtown stores.

“It’s the first time I’ve been in here since the 40s!” said a delighted Courtney McKeldin, a daughter-in-law of Baltimore mayor Theodore McKeldin who recalled riding downtown from Roland Park on the Number 10 trolley. “This is wonderful!”

But, through no fault of the exuberant and talented cast of “Howard & Lex: the Way We Roll,” something was missing from the performance, intended to evoke better times when the Westside was not ghostly and decrepit but a fashionable downtown retail district.

A song-and-dance number called “Sit In and Occupy,” referring to the 1955 civil rights sit-in at the nearby Reads Drugstore, never said a word explaining what that action was about:

The fact that the Read’s lunch counter refused to serve black people.

 “Original occupiers?”

Unlike Fluid Movement’s typical campy extravaganzas, staged in swimming pools in the summer and on roller skates in the winter with comical plots involving mythological characters or fez-wearing villains, this one was not a self-generated idea but was commissioned. The show’s sponsors are the office of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, WestSide Renaissance, Inc. and PNC Bank.

And the subject, an architecturally-rich district of buildings suffering a decades-long decline, has been the scene of some bitter controversies, including the Read’s protest and the long-stalled, city-supported $150 million mixed-use Lexington Square redevelopment that has in recent years threatened the Reads and other buildings. Under pressure from local preservationists, civil rights leaders and picketing schoolchildren to acknowledge the ’55 sit-in, Rawlings-Blake finally agreed to save the exterior of the Reads.

Now, with  a commemoration strategy  proposed and the project seemingly moving forward, “Howard and Lex” was put in the position of having to frame the neighborhood’s past as it held a pep rally for its future. It seemed like they were going to pull it off.

“They were the original occupiers!” says narrator Sylvia Kleinman (played by Sarah Jennings) in the final musical number, schooling some modern day Occupy Baltimore characters.

But “Sylvia” never explains who “they” were or what “they” were protesting. The skit morphs into a bravura roller-skating display to a medley of 60s and 70s songs like “Love Train” – performed by a largely white cast brandishing “peace” and “love” signs.

“I encouraged them to reference it or to include Helena Hicks or something, I don’t know why they didn’t,” said Ronald M. Kreitner, executive director, WestSide Renaissance, Inc., referring to one of the original participants who helped desegregate the drugstore chain.

Staying on message

As producer Ted Alsedek explained it, because the show was officially “commissioned,” Fluid Movement “wanted to hold back on making this a political tract.”

“The idea of the show is an introduction to the Westside, to get people down here – not to be on a bully pulpit,” Alsedek said. “We’re usually more willing to be acceptably risque. With this we wanted to stay on message.”

Clearly the omission didn’t detract from Kreitner’s enjoyment of the show, which essentially – if goofily – brought to life for a few hours the goal his group has been struggling to reach for more than a decade.

“It’s just wonderful to have life in the streets and in the buildings,” said Kreitner, as loudspeakers played “76 Trombones” and the cast led audience members on a parade out on Lexington Street, the show’s finale.

An Easter Bunny, a gorilla, a bare-chested Village People-esque Cupid, a human Berger Cookie and assorted others shimmied and skated past the elegant renovated Stewarts building and a landscape of boarded-up windows and vacant storefronts, including the Reads. (Two of the windows on the Reads building, whose roof is in danger of collapsing, were still hanging open yesterday.)

Owners of the few remaining small businesses in the area were thrilled to see the spectacle, including  89-year-old Tom Boulmetis, aka “Mr. Tom the Hippodrome Hatter.”

Boulmetis, who had a cameo role in the show, “hasn’t been able to talk about anything else for weeks,” Kreitner said.  (Speaking of cameos Saturday’s performance included an  onstage performance by Mayor Rawlings-Blake.  Two more performances of the show, at 3 p.m. on Mar. 31 and Apr 1., are scheduled.)

The show featured young cast members too, among them 17-year-old Alex Barry of Lauraville. Barry, who skates at Putty Hill Skateland every Friday with his friend and fellow cast-member Kendall Rich, said he enjoyed the experience, including learning a little city history.

“Before this,” Barry said, “I really did not know much about the Westside.”

Kreitner said that exposure was the real point of the show: “Not just older people but younger people are coming to the show,” he said. “And now they’re going to learn about and care about this part of the city.”