STAGE REVIEW : A ‘MISALLIANCE’ COMES TO LIFE

George Bernard Shaw was childless. So why should we pay attention to his “Misalliance,” a play about parents and children, and his even longer treatise on the subject that served as the play’s preface?

First, because Shaw wrote them with his usual sparkle. He was a somewhat more stylish writer than, say, Dr. Spock.

Second, because Shaw made up for his lack of credentials as a parent with remarkable experience as a child. He lived with his mother until he was 42 and he championed a childlike sense of adventure. Children were the bearers of the Life Force.

Finally, “Misalliance” demands attention because it comes alive with effortless assurance on the stage of South Coast Repertory, under the guidance of Martin Benson. This play is often called labored or improbable. Benson and company conceal the labor and ignore the improbable, making mincemeat of such objections.

The children in this play are not little tykes. They’re adults, technically speaking. But they haven’t been allowed, or encouraged, to break loose.

This infuriates Hypatia Tarleton (Laurie Walters). Her parents (I. M. Hobson and Patricia Fraser) are the self-made sort, and she longs to make something of herself. She feels imprisoned by all the “cackle, cackle, cackle” at home. Walters makes us feel those prison bars, but she also suggests that Hypatia enjoys the drama of the prison revolt.

Hypatia isn’t excited by her marriage prospects. Foremost among them is Bentley Summerhays (Paul Lovely), an undersized, overbred upper-class twit. Although he actually has a job in the Tarleton Underwear office, he believes his brain is turning moldy from the drudgery. He’s much more interested in marrying into the Tarleton wealth than he is in earning any himself.

Hypatia’s brother (Richard Hoyt-Miller) is all too willing to earn his wealth--in the family business, that is. He’s a disciplined junior capitalist who’s suspicious of the impractical. That includes the latest concerns of his father, the underwear czar, who has become something of a dilettante, seeking intellectual adventure.

During a few hours on May 31, 1909, dramatic changes occur in the lives of two of these young people.

They’re precipitated by a Shaw-ex-machina--a plane crash on the lawn of the Tarletons’ summer home. Into all that “cackle” stride two independent role models for the younger generation--a dashing aviator (Mark Murphey) and his passenger, a feminist Polish acrobat (Lynnda Ferguson). They’re soon joined by another young pup, a slogan-spouting Socialist (Ron Boussom) who has a score to settle with Mr. Tarleton. No one plays ineffectual hotheads better than Boussom.

Shaw doesn’t pretend that this younger generation will save the world. As he observes in his preface, setting children free allows them to make mischief as well as sense. It allows them to behave very cruelly to their elders. All of this transpires in “Misalliance.”

But that’s part of Shaw’s view of human nature. The parents who have been in control, especially the fathers, make as much mischief as their offspring.

This is certainly true of the senior Tarleton. He’s played to the hilt by Hobson, whose bushy eyebrows, double chin and glint in the eye would be worthy of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Nicholas Nickleby.” Looking on in peerless bemusement at all this energy is Ford Rainey as the senior Summerhays, a formerly active man who now needs his rest.

Anyone might want to rest in Ralph Funicello’s well-appointed solarium, with its early summer lighting designed by Tom Ruzika. Costumer Susan Denison Geller knows these characters well; Bentley’s brash black and white jacket and Tarleton’s exotic smoking jacket on top of a plaid suit are the highlights. This “Misalliance” takes no missteps.

Performances are at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $18-$25; (714) 957-4033.