A Bear Market

LAGUNA BEACH â€”  It was, in the immortal words of Pooh, a very blustery day outside.

Wretched as it was, though, last Saturday’s downpour was a lovely enhancement to the Laguna Playhouse Youth Theater’s staging of “A House at Pooh Corner.� While Mother Nature threw fits outside, the audience enjoyed the theatrical equivalent of a bedtime story shared from the folds of a toasty comforter.

Not counting warm milk and a good-night kiss, few cuddly touches were missing from this tidy 90-minute production. Staged by Youth Theater director Joe Lauderdale with 11 actors ages 10 to late teens, “The House at Pooh Corner� is a delightful and inviting initiation to live theater for children as young as 4 or 5.

One gripe. At Saturday’s matinee, several parents ignored the theater’s request to bring children 4 and up only. Though Lauderdale has interjected a good amount of physical humor into this show, most 2- or 3-year-olds can’t sit through a 45-minute first act without making a fuss, and the noise is unsettling to the young actors and the audience.

Adapted by Bettye Knapp from A.A. Milne’s 1928 children’s classic, “The House at Pooh Corner� deals with Christopher Robin’s impending departure from the Hundred Acre Woods.

It seems They (meaning the grown-ups) have decided he’s ready for Education, a mysterious and apparently unavoidable phenomenon that besets boys his age. Even the promise of tutoring from Owl--a scholar who “can spell Tuesday oh, so many ways� won’t dissuade Christopher’s parents.

The situation, needless to say, has Pooh, Piglet et al. in quite the dither, and they spend the majority of the play concocting and carrying out plots to keep their boy home.

Being stuffed with fluff, however, the critters are not the best at follow-through: Even a grand “expetition� to the North Pole (it being preferable over the South Pole, where crocodiles live) ends up in a half-dozen detours, ranging from an attempt to ditch the raucous Tigger to building gloomy Eeyore a new house.

Pre-show activity and the opening moments of the play enhance the bedtime-story environment. As early as 30 minutes before the performance, cast members are on stage donning costumes and preparing for the show in full view of the audience.

That done, the curtain rises on an essentially bare stage, and cast members bustle about putting the set and props in order. When all is in place, the actors slip into character and the book, so to speak, is opened to the first page.

Overall, Lauderdale’s cast does fine work bringing those characters to life, especially when you consider how easy it would be to rely on Dwight Richard Odle’s fuzzy and vividly detailed costumes to do most of the job.

Their efforts make it easy to see how Milne captured the way a child uses his toys to act out his own perceptions of himself and those around him. We can see how Kanga might represent a smothering but loving parent who wants her child to be “quiet and refined,� while Piglet could embody the anxieties brought on by being a very small animal, indeed.

Overall, there’s a sense of a child’s driving need to be accepted and cherished by his or her peers and family. As Winnie-the-Pooh, Kyle Pierce demonstrates this best. Pierce’s Pooh is trusting and devoted to his friends, and needing the same in return, especially from his hero, Christopher Robin. Pierce has a gentle manner that is touching, but never milquetoast.

Nick Sanetra’s Tigger is a fine contrast, all bluster and bounce and mayhem, but needful of his friend’s acceptance all the same. Dwight Armstrong’s Eeyore is perfectly pathetic and self-absorbed, and Michelle Way’s Rabbit a neurotic control freak, but both, we gather, would risk their tail for the good of their friends.

For the Hundred Acre Woods, costume and set designer Odle has crafted a pastel-colored, soft-sculpture setting that recalls much of the charm and innocence of E.H. Shepard’s original illustrations. Recorded chamber music during scene changes is too ponderous for this otherwise bright and airy tale.

“The House at Pooh Corner� is the second in a four-play season presented by the Youth Theater. The season continues with “Tuck Everlasting� (April 17-26) and “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown� (June 12-21).

* “The House at Pooh Corner,� adapted by Bettye Knapp from the children’s book by A.A. Milne. Presented by the Laguna Playhouse Youth Theater at the Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Sold out. Ends Sunday. (714) 497-2787.

Drama-tix: There may be no room at Laguna’s sold-out “House at Pooh Corner,� but tickets are available for other family theater productions this weekend.

In Orange, kids can take in a performance of “Cinderella� and join the heroine in a pre-show tea to boot. The show opens Saturday and plays at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through April 5. Tickets are $6 for the performance; $8 for the performance and tea (which begins at 1 p.m. in “Cinderella’s Garden� next to the theater, in the Super Sports Complex, 2190 N. Canal St. in Orange. Reservations required for the tea. (714) 282-8148.

Orange Coast College’s Children’s Theatre Company offers a kid-friendly introduction to the Bard in its version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.� Directed by theater professor Alex Golson, the 45-minute production continues through Saturday in the college’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Performances are at 10 a.m. today, 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday. $4 advance; $5 at the door. (714) 432-5880.

Actor William Peck brings Abraham Lincoln to life Saturday in a living-history program at Mission San Juan Capistrano. From 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., there will be historic exhibits, displays and historical reenactments featuring Peck and costumed members of the California Volunteers military group that salutes Lincoln’s role in returning the control of the mission to the Catholic Church in 1865. Exhibits include the original document signed by Lincoln, replicas of Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hat and the gun used to assassinate him.

The event is included with $4-$5 admission to Mission San Juan Capistrano, 31522 Camino Capistrano. (714) 248-2048.