Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- In ``Road Show,'' the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical opening tonight at New York's Public Theater, the character Wilson Mizner takes to the radio to promote real estate in 1920s Boca Raton, Florida.

``You've heard the expression, `Land of Opportunity?''' Mizner (Michael Cerveris) says. ``Well, this is it. The land itself!''

``You can buy it,'' he said. ``You can sell it. And it can make you rich.''

Thanks to the current U.S. housing bust, a musical that Sondheim conceived in 1952 has become timely. Set mostly in Alaska during the 1890s gold rush and southern Florida during the 1920s building boom, it takes a jaundiced view of the huckster element in U.S. capitalism.

``I would've been happier if Iceland hadn't gone out of business to help us make a point,'' said Weidman, the show's 62- year-old book writer. ``The kind of behavior that exploded in recent years was around and available if people wanted to see it.''

Sondheim was 22, two years out of Williams College, when he read in the New Yorker magazine about the Mizner brothers. Wilson Mizner was a playwright, con man, womanizer and cocaine addict. Addison Mizner was an architect who popularized the Spanish style in southern Florida.

The young composer-lyricist learned that producer David Merrick had bought the rights to their biography and Irving Berlin was writing a musical. Years went by and the show was never made.

Two Lawsuits

In 1994, Sondheim began collaborating with Weidman on their version. Four years later, a first draft in hand, they enlisted director Sam Mendes (``Cabaret''). He staged a three-week workshop at the appropriately named New York Theatre Workshop, with Nathan Lane and Victor Garber.

Since then, it has been the subject of two lawsuits, both settled, involving a former backer, Scott Rudin (``No Country for Old Men''). Hal Prince staged another version, ``Bounce,'' in Chicago and in Washington in 2003, with Richard Kind and Howard McGillin. New York Times drama critic Ben Brantley called the Washington rendering ``a wistful diagram, rarely closer to three dimensions than the outsize, hand-tinted tourist postcards that frame the set.''

The newest name reflects the restlessness of the brothers. As staged by John Doyle (``Company''), it follows their get-rich- quick ambitions in Alaska and Addison's travels in India, Hong Kong, Hawaii and eventually Palm Beach, where he finds his calling as an architect. Wilson persuades Addison (Alexander Gemignani) to build a new city in Boca Raton.

`American Energy'

Sondheim wrote in the New York Times in 1999 that the brothers represent ``divergent aspects of American energy: the builder and the squanderer, the visionary and the promoter, the conformist and the maverick, the idealistic planner and the restless cynic, the one who uses things and the one who uses them up.''

The Public Theater's artistic director, Oskar Eustis, calls it a show about American identity.

``It looks at both the upside and downside of America's optimism and can-do spirit,'' he said.

In an appearance last month at Northeastern University in Boston, Sondheim, 78, said he was concerned that theatergoers will expect too much from what had been a work-in-progress for 56 years.

Weidman called the compact 100-minute musical a companion piece to ``Pacific Overtures'' and ``Assassins,'' both intricate Sondheim-Weidman collaborations based on history.

``I'm very satisfied where we've landed and I think Steve is too,'' Weidman said.

``Road Show'' opens tonight at 425 Lafayette St. Information: +1-212-967-7555; http://www.publictheater.org.

(Philip Boroff is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 18, 2008 00:01 EST