CHILDREN’S THEATER REVIEW : Magic Can’t Transform ‘Apprentice’ : Laguna Playhouse youth troupe gives flash to the ‘Sorcerer’ Mickey made famous but can’t elevate the text.

Most children of the video age are familiar with the Disney animation of Paul Dukas’ orchestral adventure “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” starring Mickey Mouse and an army of unstoppable brooms. The Laguna Playhouse Youth Theater is offering an expanded version of the tale in which the apprentice masters the sorcerer’s craft and thwarts the mage’s vengeful scheme to destroy the local village.

Director Joe Lauderdale and his designers have created a magical place. The metallic glissandi of David Edwards’ sound design add otherworldly dimension to the action. Lit mysteriously by David Hudnall, Jacquie Moffett’s set, with its vaulting dragon-headed beams and gigantic stone beehive of a fireplace, fairly reeks of musty secrets and unknown passages.

Inside all this artful dressing, however, sits Mary Hall Surface’s mundane and humorless script, as earthbound as a boulder. Spells are nothing more than recipes to be memorized, and the apprentice masters magic like an errant student cramming for an exam. The words of the play lay out reasons why the sorcerer’s evil wizardry is defeated, but they are disembodied platitudes. In the human story of the boy and the man, the only acknowledged transformative power on earth--love--is left out of the equation entirely.

As the sorcerer, Terry Christopher has a deliciously evil cackle, which promises a far more dedicated villain than we actually get. James Bryant plays the apprentice with a piping boyishness that is appealing, and Brad Bredeweg sneaks a few playful moments into his earnest performance as an enchanted cat, but the relationships are stagnant. The actors look wonderful, however, in Dwight Richard Odle’s textured costumes that seem to spring from the pages of an ornately illustrated book.

Lauderdale does conjure vitality with his chorus of “magics,” played with orchestrated grace by Elisabeth Cass, Meghan Cass, Alexis Mirman and Jenny Rees, who are alive with the bewitching, imaginative reality lacking elsewhere.

Plenteous dry ice mist and flash-pot pyrotechnics are laid on rather heavily, as if to compensate for the theatrical charm that is missing among the actors. But trust a child to know the difference between magic and hocus-pocus. My 6-year-old companion summed up the show with the following assessment: “Too much smoke.”

‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’

A Laguna Playhouse Youth Theater production of the play by Mary Hall Surface. Directed by Joe Lauderdale. With Terry Christopher, James Bryant, Brad Bredeweg, Elisabeth Cass, Meghan Cass, Alexis Mirman and Jenny Rees. Assistant director/stage manager: Christel Grissmer. Set design: Jacquie Moffett. Lighting: David Hudnall. Sound: David Edwards. Costume design: Dwight Richard Odle. Continues Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tickets: $9 for adults, $6 for children 13 and under. Sunday’s performance is sold out. (714) 494-8021.