Javier De Frutos must have a love-hate relationship with the trappings of show business. Part of him embraces glitz and glamour, while another side seems deeply suspicious of the potentially seamy, spurious sentiments of popular entertainment. Such ambivalence made the Venezuela-born choreographer a smart choice for the West End revival of Cabaret, for which he won an Olivier Award.

Richard Thomas bagged his Olivier as the co-author and composer of the notorious Jerry Springer: The Opera. In terms of sensibility he would appear to be an ideal partner for De Frutos. Cattle Call is the pair's first collaboration and the first full-length work that De Frutos has fashioned for Phoenix Dance Theatre since his appointment in 2006 as the company's artistic director. It is a slickly staged but frustrating rethink of the backstage musical - think A Chorus Line given a contemporary dance makeover.

The title refers to both the herding and holding of livestock prior to slaughter and, in theatre parlance, an open audition. The makers of this self-consciously rude, darkly satirical show are keen to forge a link between the two definitions. The result is a reductive, hollow vision of the musical theatre as a vicious, high-pressure and soul-destroying prison where gunshots (supplemented by the odd moo) signal the end of scenes.

The performance is split into two 35-minute acts. The first is an abstraction of the audition process, supervised by Ana Lujan Sanchez's hard-as-nails casting director. Ten anonymous dancers in stylised rehearsal clothes jerk and convulse within rings or corridors of chairs, joined by two game sopranos (Adey Grummet, the piece's ostensible heart, and Loré Lixenberg) in matching burgundy velvet dresses and long white gloves.

The dancers sing, too, as they fidget in De Frutos's sharp, trademark neurotic-obsessive manner, but only the convincingly pregnant Clemmie Sveass gets a solo. So what if in Act II her former lover, clad in a devil's costume, abuses and murders her? The show must go on, as does she, resurrected in Vegas-style garb, like Kylie with a permanent bump.

The attractive melodies of Thomas's clever, through-sung score support cynical or self-pitying lyrics. I appreciate his gung-ho willingness to venture into unfamiliar artistic territory, and De Frutos's attempts to stretch what a dance performance can be. But their slim, sour scenario has little depth or dramatic tension. Could that be the point of this damning jibe at loveless theatrical society? Whether it is one worth making is another matter.

Next at The Lowry, Salford, May 6-7. Box office: 0870 7875790 Phoenix also tours a mixed bill from April 28 www.phoenixdancetheatre.co.uk

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