It’s been a while: since the 1967 novel from S.E. Hinton about the struggles of a bunch of underclass young Greasers in an Oklahoma town ruled by wealthy Socs, as relatedby the observant orphan Ponyboy. And since the 1983 film that helped make stars of Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, etc. Now, playwright Adam Rapp has drawn from both to give us a musical version, directed by Danya Taymor. There is much to admire, but too much time to admire it —too much time when the action loses its grip on the viewer, making spectators out of what should be an enraptured audience.

Admirable: the staging is full of brilliant, memorable bits. There’s the opening scene, that turns the theater into a movie palace, with our hero sneaking into a showing of Cool Hand Luke and ushers shining accusatory flashlights into the audience. There’s the abandoned church that serves as a hideout for two kids on the run, suspended in midair to highlight their isolation and doomed dreams of transcendence. And there’s the rumble in the rain, which finds a way to create a dance fight that doesn’t echo West Side Story.

Mixed: the songs — which spend a lot of time in minor-interval, introspective, alt-country territory with occasional ventures into the anthemic — do a lot of work raising subtext to text. Sometimes this works, as when Ponyboy simultaneously reveals his literary bent and dreams of something finer with “Great Expectations.” Sometimes it doesn’t, as when it makes the manly Darrel sound like a whinging whiner as he sings about how hard it is to give up your dreams to take care of your ungrateful younger brothers.

That gets at the real trouble here: the acting is fine, but the play feels a step removed from the people it seeks to portray. It serves up moments, but misses the men who inhabit them.