‘RIGHT SELF’--SCR’S GIFT TO CHILDREN

South Coast Repertory’s latest touring show, “The Right Self,” goes right to the societal gut. It tackles the theme of the individual adrift in the larger society.

Premiered Wednesday at SCR’s Mainstage in Costa Mesa, “The Right Self” wrestles with bruised egos, peer rejections, role playing and all the other day-to-day hells of trying to fit in, seeking to keep in step.

Somber stuff.

But “The Right Self,” being a 45-minute work created for elementary school children, has to make its commentary on the search for self-esteem and identity very tidy and simplified, the staging feather-light and incessantly cheerful.

It is a balancing act between edification and entertainment that author Jerry Patch, composer Diane King and director John-David Keller--all veterans of SCR’s children’s touring program--have pulled off with nimble humor, whimsical charm and affectionate chiding.

“You can’t just preach but have to make it a lot of fun for them (children). We wouldn’t last more than five seconds on stage if that’s all (preaching) we did,” said Patch, at a pre-performance workshop.

It is a formula that has worked well for SCR’s Educational Touring Production program, now in its 16th year. Bookings for “The Right Self” thus far (more than 200) assures the 1985 show will be a hit on the schoolchildren circuit in Southern California. The show will tour school and other community auditoriums between now and June.

Like the previous shows--which included last year’s “Finding Home,” a parable about immigration, and earlier ones on computers, nutrition, fitness and the arts--the topic of self-esteem and individuality for the 1985 production was picked after an SCR survey of children, parents and educators.

“The Right Self” may lack the driving pace and more fluid interplay of music, sets and actors of “Finding Home” and the 1983 “Bits and Bytes,” but the current production boasts the same gentle mockery and infectious playfulness. It is fun to watch and hear--right down to King’s richly imaginative collage of contemporary pop music and the spare but ingeniously droll sets by Dwight Richard Odle and costumes by Shigeru Yaji.

Patch’s story is all about a trio of adolescents, suffering from the low self-esteem blahs, who are suddenly tossed into the most horrific of peer encounters: the summer camp (called Iwannapersona, what else?) and the fears of instant rejection. Rocky (Sam Hamann) hides behind his swaggering, Fonzlike, jock image; Karen (Bartha Hartman) is a meddlesome know-it-all; Will (Tom Shelton) is the ultimate nerd.

The biggest show-stopper comes when Karen, in her daydream, fantasizes that she is singing rock idol Rocky Roxanne. In this devastatingly funny send-up of show-biz chic, Roxanne is a cross between Cher and Liza Minnelli, prancing and swirling across the stage, decked out in black cape and glitzy gold, belting out “A Woman in Disguise.”

But all the pretenses are stripped away from the trio in a nightmare sequence during which a villainous character (played by Kathryn Johnson) devilishly exposes all their anxieties. This ends with another show-stopper number choreographed by Diane Doyle: the unhappy trio, bundled up in outfits as shapeless as their identities, singing in their loser’s anthem close harmony, “I Can’t Do Anything Right.”

Ah, but they are saved by the kindly camp counselor (also played by Johnson), who gives them the upbeat message in a punchy series of homilies, such as “You Have To Like Yourself Before Others Can Like You.”

But the upbeat message was not without a warning: Director Keller told the Wednesday audience of schoolchildren just before the performance. “If you think growing up is rough, wait until you get into the next stage. It’s called adulthood.”