When Open Circle Theater company announced it would be reworking Jason Robert Brown’s Songs For A New World to revolve around the Iraq war, it was hard to squelch images of flag-waving, canons booming, and rewritten lyrics resembling "I’m not afraid of anything/be it religious extremists, guns or sand." Fortunately, Open Circle’s take has much more sincerity, skill and imagination driving their interpretation, though ultimately, the work stands up better unadorned.

Songs, which recently was staged as a concert at the Strathmore, is a revue in which each song tells the story of a personal journey. It's easy to see how some of them — "The Flagmaker", for example, or "Over," another Brown song not originally written for the show — would inspire thoughts of soldiers fighting, and the struggle which anyone touched by war endures. The problem is that forcing a narrative on the songs robs them of their interpretive value. Some pieces, such as the lovely "Hear My Song" and the hopeful "A New World", are already of the inspirational Broadway ballad genre, and linking them with the troops nearly pushes them into the realm of the saccharine.

This isn't to say Open Circle has taken a reflexive, knee-jerk jingoistic approach, either. Director Suzanne Richard has crafted a loose but legitimate storyline featuring a young radical and his girlfriend, an amoral politician and his wife, as well as a number of soldiers, whose lives intersect realistically (though somewhat confusingly at the play's conclusion).

Staging is sometimes too garish (a projector-style Virgin Mary during Debra Buonaccorsi's hauntingly melodic "Christmas Lullaby" drives the point home a little too forcefully; there's way too much going on in the background when Jan Johns sings "I'm Not Afraid of Anything"). Other times, it really works. Open Circle's productions incorporate disabled actors and sign language interpreters, and the Secret Service-style signer during "She Cries" steals the scene as he mocks the two men drinking their women worries away.

The choreography of Songs can feel amateurish at times (and a funeral-set dance scene with chairs seems a strange misstep) but the production is consistently innovative when it comes to making the signing a dance onto itself. Here, no one is more masterful than the graceful Warren "Wawa" Snipe, smoothly sliding and pirouetting his way through such infectious numbers as "Steam Train" (doesn't hurt that he's partnered with James Garland, an unobtrusive presence with powerhouse vocals). The always excellent Rob McQuay lends soul and regret to "The World Was Dancing," and Barbara Catrett wryly navigates the heartbreaking "Stars and the Moon". As the aforementioned politician, Lanny Slusher seems a bit out of his league.

Songs For A New World runs through Aug. 26 at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring. Tickets are available online.