THEATER REVIEW : ‘CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD’ : Conejo Players : Much of the dialogue is done in pantomime and hand-signing that is poetic in its beauty.

A real star vehicle, Mark Medoff’s ‘Children of a Lesser God,’ garnered 1980 Tony Awards for its principal actors, John Rubinstein and Phyllis Frelich, and a third for Medoff’s script. Marlee Matlin won an Academy Award for her interpretation in the 1986 film version of the role created by Frelich.

The Conejo Players’ current production, directed by John Hulette and playing Thursdays through Sundays until July 21, is a real winner: well acted, admirably and creatively staged, educational (or, at least, consciousness-raising), emotionally uplifting . . . and often very funny.

Michael Tachco, who’s appeared in earlier Conejo productions such as “Evita,” “Camelot” and “Cabaret,” plays speech therapist James Leeds. Newcomer to the area Kristine Finnstrom co-stars as his initially reluctant pupil, the incurably deaf and defiantly independent Sarah Norman.

Onstage for virtually the entire show, Finnstrom conveys all of her character’s feelings and thoughts through pantomime and hand-signing that is often poetic in its beauty. Tachco’s role may be even more difficult: not only does he have a playful of spoken lines--his own and his ‘reading’ of Finnstrom’s signing--he also signs them in Leeds’ encounters with Norman.

The supporting cast includes co-producer Mary Lee Hulette as Sarah’s mother, Jan Peters as the head of the school for the hearing-impaired in which most of the action takes place and Christi Couvillion as an attorney who figures in the second-act action and acts as the play’s token outsider, a surrogate for those in the audience who have little or no understanding of the hearing-impaired. All are veteran actors who turn in credible performances in what are essentially supporting roles.

More exciting, though, is the work of Teliaferro L. Miller and Laura Jean Barton as two of Finnstrom’s classmates. Both of them, students at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, turn in remarkably effective theatrical debuts in difficult roles.

Much credit should be extended too to signing instructor-interpretors Sherril Altstadt, Marty Crawford, Tina Merade and Karen Alpert. Finnstrom is wonderful--before long, you’ll be able to understand at least some of what she’s signing, but she’s evidently the only member of the cast who is actually hearing-impaired or who was fluent in signing before the production. The work accomplished by the rest is quite convincing.

All of the action, which is spread between a classroom, a dormitory, a cafe and a couple of homes, takes place on one set, credited to Lucien Coniglio Jervis. The furnishings are minimal, highlighted by a ‘window,’ behind which seasons change instantaneously--if a bit lickety-split at times (scenes that it would seem from the dialogue are only moments or a few hours apart, take place with snow, which had been on the ground seconds before, all cleared up.)

Likewise, whoever was running the sound at last Saturday night’s performance was doing so with an unnecessarily heavy hand: there’s no way that the background music of James Taylor’s greatest hits could be more interesting than dialogue that is all but overwhelmed in a brief but crucial scene.