THEATER REVIEW / ‘DAVID’S MOTHER’ : Parental Lesson : The powerful and flawlessly rendered play calls on viewer to understand rather than to judge.

Fathers on playgrounds look at their sons with relief when they see David. Mothers stare with alarm when he falls and hurts himself. Relatives affect a self-conscious gentleness whenever they speak of him.

These are the daily realities of life for “David’s Mother,” Sally, a single parent trying to raise a severely autistic child in this powerful and flawlessly rendered Pasadena Playhouse Production at the Lobero Theatre.

Bob Randall’s play hooks you with stark, realistic details from the messy, unglamorous world in which one out of 10 children is born with some type of impairment.

And when that impairment is so extreme that it permanently condemns a human being to an inarticulate, spastic existence, life for a responsible parent can be difficult.

“Difficult,” mutters Ellen Greene in the title role, savoring all the ironies in the word. “Doctors have such nice clean, clinical terms. There was my child sitting all alone in his own urine.”

It was a memory from Sally’s experience with ineffectual special education programs, and the terrifying consequence that enrollment in the programs had on David (Karl Maschek). Ignoring persistent reminders from a well-meaning social worker (Peggy Blow) that state law requires professional developmental assistance for every handicapped minor, David’s mother has resolved to keep him at home despite the sacrifices involved.

And as Greene shows us in a consistently focused and compelling performance, those sacrifices can be great indeed.

Too great for her ex-husband (Vasili Bogazianos) and the girl (Leah Remini) who “used to be my daughter”--both have walked out on her and David, leaving them to their electronic surrogate family (the VCR) and the New York apartment so shabbily decorated in David Potts’ “downwardly mobile” set design.

Yet as we learn in flashbacks (signaled by blue lighting shifts courtesy of designer Marc B. Weiss), the husband and daughter were not monsters--they just couldn’t cope with the extreme burden of life with David. One of this play’s chief strengths is that it calls on us to understand rather than to judge the people involved.

Randall supplies plenty of humor to lighten his somber subject, especially in the repartee between David’s mother and her equally quick-witted sister (Carol Locatell). There’s also some wry perspective on “normal” youth as represented by the hot-hormoned niece (Jennifer Blanc). But it isn’t the stuff of sitcoms--there’s a sharp edge to the jokes, which are as self-protective as they are funny.

Through Josephine R. Abady’s direction, there’s also an emphasis on tough-minded optimism bred of painful recognitions.

A would-be suitor (Norman Snow), attempting to help David master the VCR, criticizes David’s mother for her overprotective martyrdom: “You’re so sure you know what he can and can’t do that you don’t let him do anything!”

Acknowledging that children--even David--must grow beyond their parents is the point at which Sally can stop being “David’s mother” and reclaim her own identity. There’s a lesson in that for parents everywhere.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“David’s Mother” will be performed at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 5 and 9 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 6 at the Lobero Theatre, 33 Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara. Running time is 2 hours and 9 minutes. Tickets are $31.50. Call 883-7529 for reservations or information.