Can Laura Ingalls Wilder's immensely popular series of children's novels about growing up in the unsettled Midwest of the late 19th century, which gained fame in the 1930s and then inspired a beloved television series that ran from 1974 to 1982, be coherently reduced into a single piece of musical theater? The answer to that question is now on view at Little House on the Prairie, which launches its national tour at the Paper Mill Playhouse (having premiered last year at the Guthrie Theater). While the show is professionally competent and occasionally crowd-pleasing, the end result is a rather forgettable piece of theater.

The work's creators -- including composer Rachel Portman, lyricist [...]