‘Jungle Book’ Assumes a Darker, Exotic Look : Theater: SCR Young Conservatory Players present a stylistic Kipling classic. New Age-like music and sets give a tribal feeling.

COSTA MESA —  Director B.J. Dodge, whose production of “The Jungle Book” opens Saturday, intends to prove that children’s theater isn’t all fairy tales and clowns.

“Our version is very Asian, done with masks,” said Dodge, whose South Coast Repertory Young Conservatory Players production, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic stories, will be staged in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

“There’s no attempt to fool anybody into thinking these are really animals. You see the actors, you see the masks come on and there’s a transformation. . . .

“I mean, Disney sort of got into everybody’s collective consciousness,” Dodge said of the movie version of “The Jungle Book.” “But if you can’t have the dancing bear and Louis Prima, you do something different.”

Music by Lizabeth Woodies plays an integral role in the stage production. “It’s kind of New Age,” Dodge said. “There’s a talking drum, a slat drum, maracas, a guitar, bells and gongs. You hear leaves crunch, birdcalls and a kind of leitmotif for each animal.

“There’s also a recorded chorus that doesn’t sound anything like the music of western civilization.”

Dwight Richard Odle, the South Coast Repertory set and costume designer responsible for the deft, professional look of many Players productions, explained that the aim was to create a tribal feeling and to avoid a “cartoon approach.”

“All of our shows have a very strong literary base,” Odle said, “This isn’t just children’s theater of dancing clowns or whatever. This show is not for very young children. It’s a little bit darker than we’ve done in the past.”

For instance, the wolves are a little scary “because that’s what wolves are by their nature. Older children will be able to see that there isn’t a genuine threat there.”

Odle had to compensate for the limitations of the small arena stage in Founders Hall by making “the stage pictures as interesting (and environmental) as possible.” Thus, a jungle clearing is created with grass matting, ramps and vines, and for olfactory impact, “a lot of eucalyptus leaves.

“We had to fireproof all those eucalyptus leaves,” Odle said ruefully. “There was a lot more to it than clearing out the back yard and throwing it on the set.”

Costumes in greens, golds and rusts reflect jungle and leaf motifs, based on Indonesian and Indian styles, with a fullness that Odle said suggests an androgynous, animal-type body.

Playwright Will Huddleston, whose other works for children include plays about Amelia Earhart and the mythological Perseus, is looking forward to seeing the Players staging of his adaptation.

A director at the California Theatre Center in Sunnyvale, Huddleston has produced the play twice himself. He was intrigued when told of Dodge’s plans.

“It sounds exciting,” he said, “a stylistic theatricalization that should work well.”

When asked about the play’s seriousness, Huddleston said, “Kipling’s jungle stories have a lot of adult themes. Mowgli, the jungle boy, is truly an outsider. He doesn’t belong in either the world of the jungle or the world of man, but he finds (his own) strength in that.”

Dodge avoided seeing Huddleston’s staging because “I might not have been able to find a hook for myself,” she said. “My feeling when I read it was, ‘Oh, this is an adoption story.’

“It’s so much about how the animals raise him, teach him and are responsible for him. That’s what a family does, isn’t it?”

But then, “Mowgli has to leave to find out he must create his own world.”

Dodge, who has taught in the Young Conservatory for nine years and teaches acting full time at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, sees the play as a challenge to both the audience and the young actors (ages 12 to 17, plus a few adults up to age 30).

“The actors don’t leave the area of performance,” she said. “I wanted them to sustain their own concentration. And, if the audience sees the actors in that engagement, it’s an indirect encouragement to stay tuned in.”

“I feel kids should have theater that is not condescending,” she said, “theater that is good quality and challenging. One of the most gratifying things,” she added, “is to teach for so long and finally be able to practice what you preach.”

“The Jungle Book” plays through Nov. 19 in Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Saturdays and Sundays at 1 and 3:30 p.m., next Friday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $7. (714) 957-4033.