FOR those who think anybody can create “Kiss Me, Kate,” I recommend “Enter the Guardsman,” a musical adaptation of Ferenc Molnar’s “The Guardsman.”

The 1910 Molnar play dealt with a suspicious husband who impersonates a dashing guardsman to see if his bored wife will fall for the tempting morsel. It became, indeed, the inspiration for a Nelson Eddy/Rise Stevens movie musical called “The Chocolate Soldier.” However, it is not “The Chocolate Soldier” that is being offered at the Dimson Theatre, but a 1997 effort with book and direction by Scott Wentworth, music by Craig Bohmler and lyrics by Marion Adler. After a stint at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, “Enter the Guardsman” has thus, almost intact, entered New York.

Wentworth has taken huge and unrewarding liberties. For one thing, it becomes a backstage musical. The married Actor and Actress (they are given no names) are appearing in a costume play in (I think) Europe in the late 19th century; they have grown too familiar with each other. There is a novel device present: the Playwright, who has in fact nothing to do except applaud the Actor’s bright idea of impersonation. He is a Noel Coward type, but without wit or wisdom; the suave Marc Jacoby is given nothing to play in the role.

The Actor is Robert Cuccioli, still best known for his memorable hair-do definition of character in “Jekyll & Hyde.” He is absurdly melodramatic and aridly melodic in such numbers as “Chopin” and “True to Me” (in which he repeats the trick of defining character by hair, trying on various costumes before deciding on the one of the Guardsman – in what country?? – to deceive his wife).

The Actress is Marla Schaffel, who is insipid and banal in such belters as “My One Great Love.” Their songs – and everyone else’s – have no melodies. The choreography – or rather the complete absence of it – is appalling; we get, since the whole insufferable thing takes place backstage, twirling coat-racks filled with unsightly costumes.

Wentworth makes it clear that, in his view, the Actress knew the secret of the Guardsman’s identity all along. She has pretended to go along with the seductive deception – not that anything happens, mind you – to teach her husband to jazz up their dull lives. Or something like that. It’s “art imitating life and life imitating art,” as the Playwright tritely puts it.

Molnar’s witty mystery – how much did she know before she sinned? – has become a chaste and moral taste. And one without charming music or convincing lovers.

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ENTER THE GUARDSMAN

Dimson Theatre, 108 E. 15th St., at Union Square, (212) 239-6200.