Children’s Play Inspires a 3-Ring Imagination : The Glorious Players’ ‘Working Without Annette’ encourages youngsters to read and think while being entertained.

There is a cure for Saturday Somnambulance Syndrome, that insidious childhood disorder marked by an inability to pry eyes away from such infectious visions as Beetlejuice, Count Duckula, Scooby Doo and Punky Brewster.

Theater for children can work marvels. For example, “Cirque du L.A.: Working Without Annette,” performed Saturday afternoons by the Glorious Players at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West Los Angeles, has brought some of the most severe cases back to life.

“Years ago, when I was the artistic director of the Burbage Theater for Children,” said “Annette” director Debbie Devine, “we were doing traditional fairy tales with high production values. And we’d find the kids halfway through were feeling bored and alienated! So we decided, let’s get rid of everything! Let’s get rid of all the props and sets and scenery and let the kids feel the magic of creating it. Let them imagine . And there was so much more reception, and so much more contribution.”

Such is the philosophy that went into “Working Without Annette.” The Glorious Players have gone to great lengths to develop a complex and subtle story that is engaging and that will engage the mind. And this is no surprise, really, when you stop to consider that Devine and many of the other cast members are also teachers.

Devine, who works at the Poseidon School in West Los Angeles, and the rest of the educator-actors in the troupe are concerned with accomplishing more than just giving the youngsters a good time.

“One of the problems I found with adult theater companies,” said Glorious Players member Erick Melton, “or even other children’s theater companies, is that there’s a lot of competition. People are looking at it as a venue to get someplace else, whereas everyone here is very committed to the work and committed to each other. We think what we’re doing is important for kids. We call it theater from the heart.”

To that end, Devine’s brainchild--two years in development by the players--is intended to give the children who come to see it a lot of laughs, the idea that reading books might actually be a nice--and important--thing to do, and that making changes during one’s life needn’t be traumatic.

But fear not, Ninja Turtle fans. “Working Without Annette” is not one of those preachy productions that talks down to children and hits them over the head with its messages. As 10-year-old Christiane Blasor Wilson put it after a recent show, “I thought it was very funny and clever for trying to help children to understand how to do things, and not to give up.”

Or in the words of Dan Milder, a Culver City father of two little girls who attended the play: “Over the years I’ve seen a lot of these groups with these message plays. They get real tedious and boring. I just don’t think you can teach kids that way. This show was an exception in that I felt they did actually do that message kind of show well--which is not something you see very often.”

Milder’s daughters--Irene, 4, and Patricia, 8--”both got it,” their dad said. “If you’re doing a show for kids, a lot of times it’s for one level or another. This seemed to get across to many.”

Before the play begins, while the audience waits to be seated, the cast members--all jabbering and clowning--parade into the lobby and entice the tykes into a game of “freeze.” Everyone marches in a circle and is directed to freeze in the form of animals or fairy-tale characters before joining the “Fairyland Express” and forming a line to enter the theater.

The tale of Molly then unfolds on the stage. She is a little girl who is afraid to make changes--as first evidenced by her refusing her brother’s birthday gift, an offer to rearrange her bedroom. Molly also can’t read, and she runs away to join the circus.

But it’s a troubled circus--a circus without much of an audience, mostly because none of its charming performers are willing to take a chance on changing their acts. Molly stumbles onto the German husband-and-wife high-wire team having an unintentionally comical argument over their routine and breaks into laughter. Molly’s outburst inspires the high-wire artists to inject a little comedy into their skits.

Things come to a head when Molly meets an Indian mind reader and magician named “Ramjacmohammadshankar, but you can call me Fred” (Melton), who hilariously reads the minds of some of the kids in the real audience.

Molly and Fred exchange dialogue like this:

Fred: You like the fact that I’m trying new things?

Molly: Oh, I think it’s wonderful. I wish everybody would try something new!

Fred: Oh, that fills my heart so much with joy that it’s bubbling out and flowing out onto the floor! Your support has given me such confidence that this time I think I’m going to make the new trick work!

Molly: Hot dog!

Fred: Ketchup and mustard!

Perhaps most important, “Working Without Annette” uses precious few props. Aside from endearing musical flourishes composed by Deborah Chew, a professional singer and second-grade teacher in the Hawthorne School District, and papier - mache animal co-stars Zoey the zebra and Emily the giraffe, all special effects are the result of the pantomime abilities of the eight actors.

“We try to pare down the funny blocks and the colored spirals that other children’s theater companies tend to do, and try and communicate with the kids. Get them involved,” Melton said. “The basis of everything we do is the idea that you can do this, too. This is fun. Acting is creative. Anything you do like this is going to be positive.”

Encouraging reading as a basic theme was Devine’s idea. The cast--which also includes Jill Cervant, Cheryl Crabtree, Jinni, Jay Kyle McAdams, Andy Papp and Carra Robertson--had become convinced while touring schools with its previous long-running production, “The Island,” that literacy among children should be one of society’s top priorities.

“We discovered over and over again that reading was the issue,” Devine said. “But it would have been too heavy-handed to just deal with a kid who didn’t want to read. So we tied the play into changes --in any aspect, with anybody--being aware that changing is a difficult thing for anybody to do, whether you’re 3 or 300. And I thought the idea of the circus being a very traditional art form would be a nice metaphor. And also one that is somewhat imperiled, really.”

Toward the end of the play, Fred tricks Molly into trying to read a book of magic spells. “Reading is just like magic,” he says. “It takes a lot of hard work, and you have to practice it every day!”

Molly responds, “But I can’t read!” and starts to cry. The lights dim, and from the wings strolls a huge walking book, like something out of “Alice in Wonderland.”

The book and Molly gradually grow accustomed to each other and ultimately engage in a delicate, balletic dance accompanied by a touching song written and sung by Chew: “Just imagine yourself in a jungle/With lions , tigers, birds among the trees. . . . Or we could travel far to the city/With night lights and people on the streets. . . . Don’t be afraid to look at me/You can be who you want/and all you want to be/If you’ll only look and see/if you’ll only begin to read me.”

“After we finished the dance scene and created the ballet-dancing book,” Devine said, “I had this image of the next time a kid was in a library, that maybe--even if it’s just for a fleeting moment--that the books would have . . . more life . That there would be an animation in children’s hearts and minds about it. But that may be me just dreaming, you know.”

Or maybe it isn’t. In any case, it beats surrendering to the likes of Scooby Doo and Count Duckula.

“Working Without Annette” is at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Shows are 1 p.m. Saturdays, indefinitely. Tickets are $6.50. For information, call (213) 477-2055.