Wainwright sings from the heart, with flair

Why doesn’t Rufus Wainwright just get it over with and fulfill his destiny as a Broadway composer? He’s got the dramatic song flair, the richly worded emotions and the kind of melodies that kill in contemporary musical theater. And Thursday at the Wiltern LG, in white slacks, colorful shirt and long scarf, the lanky singer even looked ready to take over for Hugh Jackman as singer-songwriter Peter Allen in the current Broadway production “The Boy From Oz.”

Wainwright excelled at the kind of soul-searching soliloquy that is the foundation of musicals -- the songs in which the ingenue lays out his or her desires and doubts. “Harvester of Hearts,” from his new, third album, “Want One,” was particularly moving for its vulnerable yearning and as the best showcase for his viscous voice.

He also was in top (if sometimes over-the-top) form with pop-rock set pieces, observational musings a la the recent “Oh What a World,” a witty weaving of journal-like fragments with musical lines copped from Ravel’s “Bolero.” He even gave it a bit of theatricality by having his band members (including sister and opening act Martha Wainwright) “melt” to the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Switching between piano and acoustic guitar, he offered varying shades of the Beatles, Beach Boys and Randy Newman, often eschewing the excessive production layers that overwhelm much of the new album. And there was a strong Cole Porter/Noel Coward current as well to his self-deprecating comments and such tragicomic exercises as the unreleased “Gay Messiah.”

But he also made a case for his least theatrical side when he and Martha were joined by their father, singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, for an encore of the classic western weeper “Old Paint.”

Of course, given that much of Rufus’ material draws on his family’s dysfunctions, that had its own dramatic undercurrent too.