Even before its third show of the season opened this weekend, Bay Street’s revival of the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun was extended. The demand was that great, for Irving Berlin’s classic songbook score, and Dorothy Fields’ clever lyrics for such standards: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” and many more, in a show that on the surface is a show within shows, featuring lead characters who are competitors and who, natch, fall in love. That winning formula cannot be beat: Bay Street’s first-rate production does it proud!

Set against a backdrop of rolling hills with fine musicians nestled in, the play is funny, charming; every song, dance and scene rises above the noise of our current events. When Annie and her love-at-first-sight beau/ foe Frank Butler sing, “They Say It’s Wonderful” in Act 1, I was melting in my seat. A leitmotif for Act 2, their romance holds sway, much because of the talents of the two leads, Matthew Saldivar as Frank Butler and especially Alexandra Socha as Annie Oakley. A coming of age story too, this is her show.

Still, coming from that bygone time, much will rankle today’s viewers, especially in an America where gun violence is a daily happening. (Did I say El Paso? Dayton?) Even in the musical’s fictive America, not everyone is a crack shot. And it’s only entertainment, right? When Annie Oakley shouts “pull,” a clay bird bites the proverbial dust, her rifle exalted as a glorious tool. We hear that pop with new ears. How could we not?

On opening night, dreamy eyed Matthew Saldivar filled me in: Director Sarna Lapine worked on the script, to remove the extremes of the misogynist and Native American passages. Awed by Socha, just as his character is in the show, Saldivar credits her for the tenderness of their duets. When he told me he was married to Lapine, I said, Wait a minute, you are involved romantically with both women, the director and leading lady! “That’s showbiz,” he laughed. “That’s how we do it.” Natur’lly!