Budding Thespians Learn Classic Lesson From Seldom-Revived ‘Blue Bird’ : Stage: Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre performers journey into a turn-of-the-century work their director says is ‘tremendously relevant’ in the ‘90s.

The award-winning amateur Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre has challenged its actors and audiences in the past with plays set during the Depression and in Nazi Germany. Beginning tonight, it will take a fairy tale odyssey into the seldom-revived classic children’s play, “The Blue Bird.”

Maurice Maeterlinck’s turn-of-the-century work about two children who visit magic places is an allegory exploring values and personal growth, a fantasy search for what’s most important to the human spirit.

It was not a particularly successful vehicle for Shirley Temple in 1936 and it was a problematic, first Soviet-American film co-production in 1976 with an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda. But this one-time children’s theater favorite is often viewed as a dated effort. Director Scott Davidson doesn’t agree.

“I think it’s tremendously relevant,” he said, “because the message touches on the universal; it veers away from materialism and says that happiness is something you discover inside yourself.

“In addition, it really is an epic adventure, the tale of a search from land to land, looking for the elusive bluebird of happiness.”

Davidson said he wanted his actors, a company of 30 whose ages range from 11 to adult, to understand the play emotionally as well as technically.

“It’s been a long rehearsal process,” Davidson said. After readings and research, “we turned the process into the cast members’ personal quest to discover what happiness meant to them.

“We thought it would be easy, but it’s a bigger question than people think it is on the surface; it ties into all aspects of our lives.”

Of his open staging, director Davidson said: “We’ve tried to hone everything down to the essence. The action starts on the children’s doorsteps, then they’re in a graveyard, then in the Land of Memory, the Lair of Nature, the Palace of Luxuries and the Kingdom of the Future. And then they come back home.

“So there are a lot of different scenes, constantly shifting. We needed to create environments that could shift with the show, that tied in with whatever essential elements exist for each of those environments.

“We’ve identified each land by its colors,” he explained. “As the kids travel to each land, they pick up the colors of the land in their costumes. When they return home, each of the colors is somehow incorporated into their home setting in ways they’ve never seen before. That’s the message of the play: ‘You travel to make discoveries about yourself and then come back to recognize the beauty and value in all the things that have always been there.’ ”

Brad Bredeweg, 14, who plays Tyltyl, one of the questing children, found the play akin to his own self-discovery. During one rehearsal exercise, cast members were asked to relate experiences that made them happy.

Bredeweg said: “I remembered walking through a field with my friend, and the wind was blowing through our hair and we just walked and talked and that made me the happiest--friendship. And in the play, it comes out that happiness is really love and that related to my image.”

Bredeweg, who confessed that “I was pretty confused by the play at first,” realized that he identified with Tyltyl.

“My character at the beginning is a real brat,” Bredeweg said. “He wants everything. When I was 10, I begged and pleaded for everything. Then . . . I learned that happiness isn’t getting everything you want. Happiness is enjoying life and getting as much out of it as you can.”

For Kimberely Timelage, 24, who is both a chorus member and Madame Luxury, happiness is doing “The Blue Bird,” her first play.

“Even in the audition,” she said, “you knew it was something important. It’s neat to watch your own growth, as well as the growth of the group as a whole.”

Timelage is especially enthusiastic about one unusual element of Davidson’s cast preparation--the actors were required to keep a journal of their experiences during the rehearsal process.

“The journal helps a lot,” she said. “You come home and start writing and you discover so many things about yourself. My Mom called and said, ‘you sound so good, it’s got to be more than just a play.’

“And it is.”

“The Blue Bird” plays through June 17 at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Drive, Laguna Beach. Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets: $5 to $8. Information: (714) 494-0743 or (714) 494-8021.