Helping Young People Look at ‘Why’ of Death : Stage: SCR’s Young Conservatory Players focus on ages 10 and up, rather than the usual much younger audiences.

A play for children . . . about death?

The South Coast Repertory Young Conservatory Players, best known for upbeat adaptations of familiar children’s classics, is challenging its actors and audience alike with Aurand Harris’ “The Arkansaw Bear,” opening today at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Harris’ critically praised play gently traces the stages of emotion felt by the dying and their survivors through a fantasy odyssey undertaken by Tish, a little girl whose grandfather is dying, and an aging performing bear. Together they seek the “why” of death.

“When you get deeper into it, you realize we’re doing a play about living,” said director Diane Doyle, who noted that the work does not touch on specific religious beliefs. “The little girl is a footprint, part of a cycle; she carries on.”

Doyle promised that the show is not shadows and gloom; it has a circus theme with clowns, acrobats, a high-wire act, a fairy named Star Bright and the dancing Bear.

“It’s not a scary play,” she said. “The message is subtle. It provokes conversations, opens the door, so the subject doesn’t remain undiscussed. It’s not a downer, either; Harris makes us laugh.

“It’s so simple. It’s just the carrying on of the family, the cherishing of positive memories.”

“The Arkansaw Bear” gives Doyle a chance to fulfill a longtime desire to provide theater to older audiences, ages 10 and up, rather than the much younger audiences who are most often targeted by children’s theater.

She said what her company is doing “should be called theater for youth, not children’s theater. We want to do plays with words, thoughts and ideas and get away a little bit from ‘color and noise.’ Older children (have been) missing out.”

Doyle admitted that there may be some difficulty in building that new audience, when patrons in the past have felt Players’ shows were appropriate for babies and toddlers.

“We’re marketing differently, using an older approach,” Doyle said. “You just grit your teeth and hope that older group comes in.”

The cast features eight young people, ages 12 to 17, plus four adults. To prepare her young actors for the sensitive subject matter, Doyle said: “We had a lot of discussion before rehearsing; we really had to talk this all out. I make sure my actors know why they’re saying what they’re saying.”

Michael Miller, 17, a theater arts major at Fullerton College, plays the World’s Greatest Dancing Bear. He was surprised and intrigued by his role.

“In many ways,” he said, “the Bear is both the comic relief and the serious part of the play; one minute he prances around the stage with pretentious monologues in a bad English accent, the next he’s weeping at the feet of Death.

“Tish (played by Christine Farrell) helps him figure out what’s happening as much as he helps her.”

Miller was surprised to find how closely he identified with the role. “The Bear’s a lot like me,” he said, “because he’s always on, always entertaining everybody. I’m a lot like that in real life, I tend to walk around and make incredibly bad jokes all the time.”

The most difficult part of the role has been playing age, Miller said. “He’s an old bear, and I’m 17. A teen-ager tends to be all over the place--the Bear still has a lot of energy, but has to be more subdued. You have to focus more.”

Miller relates to the play on a more serious level as well, saying that it echoes the denial and finally the acceptance he felt at the loss of a close family friend not long ago. “It’s pretty much the process I went through,” he said.

The South Coast Repertory Young Conservatory Players’ production of “The Arkansaw Bear” is in Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Performances today, Sunday, May 5 - 6, May 12-13, 1 and 3 p.m.; May 11, 7:30 p.m.. Tickets: $7. Information: (714) 957-4033.