‘Nightingale’ Melds Andersen With Peking Opera

When a Chinese dragon parades down the aisle, lured by a flower dangling from a bamboo pole, audiences are alerted that this may not be the usual children’s theater fare.

It’s the opening of the Serendipity Theatre Company’s “Nightingale” at the Coronet Theatre. The play, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic, is performed with a nod to the Peking Opera, using stylized movement, masks and onstage gongs, drums and flute.

It doesn’t quite live up to its beguiling beginning--it lacks dramatic tension--but it remains a pleasant show. With few props, against a backdrop of two giant fans, the story unfolds about a selfish little Empress (Katy Killackey), her faithful servant (Elizabeth Jee) and the Nightingale (Patricia Ayame Thomson) whose songs teach a lesson of giving.

Musician Richard Stauffacher supplies the proper mood, and Leona Sadobee’s red and gold set design pleases the eye, as do the colorful traditional costumes (Scott Davidson is listed as costume coordinator). Audience participation is a winner: The entire audience is the Imperial Orchestra, playing imaginary guitars, pianos, tambourines and drums.

Killackey is engagingly imperious, manipulating her fan with panache, while Jee is an appealing narrator. Thomson’s somewhat breathless vocalizing is offset by her graceful miming of the Nightingale’s wings.

But, while director Katy Henk’s delicate touch works in gentler moments, it isn’t dynamic in others, at the expense of her own interesting choreography. This makes the more emphatically non-Western elements--particularly the ritualistic dances of Gods I and II (Mark Conley and Leslie Thurston, in masks)--seem tentative.

The Serendipity’s strength is its willingness to tackle everything from commedia dell’arte to serious drama. It continues that diversity in its upcoming season, beginning Sept. 13 with “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” followed by “The Diary of Anne Frank” on Nov. 1. The ongoing challenge is to keep the quality up to the standard of the imaginative programming.

“Nightingale,” Serendipity Theatre Company at the Coronet Theatre, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd.; Fridays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 1 and 4 p.m. Ends June 23. $10 per adult, $6 per child, age 13 and under; (213) 652-9199. Running time: 1 hour.