STAGE REVIEW : Good-Natured Fun With ‘Columbus’ : Michel de Ghelderode’s little-known version of the explorer’s vision portrays a gentle creature who is ‘haunted by the horizon.’

Near the end of 1992, it is easy to be surfeited with the telling and retelling, deconstructing, reconstructing, revising and politicizing of the story of Christopher Columbus.

But 500 years after Columbus first set keel in the Caribbean, one prescient man seems to have had a sense of how to view the affair in a vision developed not in America but in Belgium, not in 1992 but in 1927.

Michel de Ghelderode’s little-known “Christopher Columbus,” now at Stages, is a sly exercise in how to explode myth. It’s unusual on many levels: unusual for De Ghelderode, whose other work is a lot darker and more truculent; unusual in that, instead of taking sides, this iridescent little play takes an icon and, like the soap bubbles this Columbus likes to blow, gives the man and his dreams a fragile and human proportion.

It is a wild ride on gossamer wings. De Ghelderode’s “Columbus” has little to do with probable reality--the real story of Columbus, whatever that may be. From fairly reliable character description (not Ridley Scott’s or Gerard Depardieu’s), Columbus was a rather stolid, opportunistic and obsessive man, nothing at all like the gentle creature in De Ghelderode’s play, who is “haunted by the horizon” but believes deeply that “one must be born, brought up and disappear with simplicity.”

This staging by Romanian director Florinel Fatulescu plays up the farcical aspects of a piece that the author, in a note for his directors, describes as “spectacle and enchantment” that “plays swiftly, without pause, in the perspective of a dream . . . with a message for those who like them.”

Let those who like them look for the deeper themes. They are easily found under the wacky plumage and bright coloration in quizzical lines and dazzling speeches (George Hauger’s vigorous English translation carries the poetry).

The plot is nothing more substantial than a parade of self-centered intruders intent on encumbering the adventure. Among them: a duplicitous reporter (Darcy Marta, dressed as a chamber maid with a camera concealed in her mop), a greedy businessman (Ken Elliot), a whiny King Ferdinand (Robert Read), and a fool (Clay Wilcox, wearing shoes on his knees, the better to grovel?).

Our title character, played with an imperturbable innocence by big Tony Carreiro, is an overgrown boy trying to follow his bliss. The issue of discovering that the Earth is round--”having destroyed a surface and created a volume”--is made much of incorrectly-on-purpose, since Columbus was out only to verify that it was, by sailing to China, not to a New World.

A lot of this “Christopher Columbus” consists of games played with conveniently rearranged hindsight mixed with fiction. There is even the acknowledgment of other adventurers having preceded Columbus in the ironic greeting by Montezuma (Elliot again): “We are peacefully celebrating your arrival, as we do every time a navigator discovers America.” This is followed by the almost offhand acknowledgment that his people are “finished.” There’s where your deeper themes lie buried.

But Fatulescu correctly chooses to emphasize the breeziness in a production brightly designed in whites and blues and other strong primary colors by Robert W. Zentis, who did the simple set, lights and Guignolesque costumes. These are enriched by the haunting original compositions of Rodica Fatulescu and Mitchel Evans (who also plays a couple of characters with his usual deftness).

Why the American Indians who ask for whiskey are handed wine flasks (“We need whiskey in order to despair better”) is a minor mystery in a production that has splashy, good-natured fun with a much larger one.

* “Christopher Columbus,” Stages Theatre Center, 1540 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 28. $12-$15; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Tony Carreiro: Christopher Columbus

Alexis Cremieux: Sleepwalker/Angel Azuret/Poet

Ken Elliot: Montezuma/Friend

Mitchel Evans: The Crowd Man/The Learned Man

Darcy Marta: The Reporter/The Woman

Michele Poitras: Woman/Viquosine/Admiral Death

Robert Read: The King

Gene Toz: The Minister/The American

Clay Wilcox: Folial/The Lookout

A Stages presentation. Producer Sonia Lloveras. Director Florinel Fatulescu. Playwright Michel de Ghelderode. Translation George Hauger. Sets, lights, costumes Robert W. Zentis. Original music Rodica Fatulescu, Mitchel Evans. Production stage manager Sindy Slater. Booth operator Jeremy Brown.