That is as it should be; you expect a professional theater devoted to the American musical to steer Show Boat on a true course, which Media does in Jesse Cline's staging. The production marks Cline's second go-round with the show some people believe to be the greatest American musical. He last directed Show Boat in 1998, when it became the biggest attraction in Media's history of live stage productions. It still is.

The Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein musical version of Edna Ferber's story of love, lies, and sometimes desperate lives aboard and around a Mississippi riverboat first appeared in 1927. In the first of six Broadway productions, Paul Robeson played Joe, one of the long-suffering black workers on the show boat and around the wharves, and his rendition of "Ol' Man River" - replicated in the 1936 movie - is one of musical theater's golden, iconic performances.

At Media, the expressive Phillip Boykin makes the song his own passionate declaration, even in its shameless number of little reprises, sometimes gently delivered as background mood setter.

Reprises are, in fact, Show Boat's downside. This period musical, set in the 1880s, cannot date itself by material, which reflects that time; what makes it feel old-fashioned is its structure. It has both the charm and the musty progression of an 82-year-old musical.

This old-fashioned stage writing includes not just the reprises, but also breakout songs that have little to do with anything except that they're singable - I'm thinking of "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Bill." Lucky for us, at Media both are delivered impeccably by Jennie Eisenhower, who last night won the Barrymore Award for best musical actress for her turn in Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits at the Walnut Street Theatre last season.

Eisenhower plays Julie, the young alcoholic chanteuse who is, essentially, a loser with a heart. Losers with big hearts, and voices to match, drive the plot, and Media's cast inhabits the characters with uniform brio.

Stephen Bonnell captains this boat, an impressive stage structure by Joe LeDuc with six wooden smokestacks rising from its lobby. Elisa Matthews plays the captain's daughter, Michael Padgett the possible cad she falls for, and the two of them sing a fine "Make Believe." Sabrina Carten is Joe's no-nonsense wife, and April Woodall plays the captain's spouse (and overly moral compass). John Jarboe and Janet Rowley are the song-and-dance team that finds work on and off the boat.

Everyone's dressed in Mary Ann Swords-Greene's richly textured, evocative 19th-century riverfront costumes. This Show Boat sails with all flags flying.