CHILDREN’S THEATER REVIEWS : ‘My Mom’s Dad’ Connects With Respect-for-Elders Lesson : Graceful staging of traditional Asian-style play-within-a-play will be presented free at Crystal Court by South Coast Repertory.

“My Mom’s Dad,” a South Coast Repertory Educational Touring Production that will be presented free at South Coast Plaza’s Crystal Court this and next weekend, uses a Vietnamese folk tale to bring an American girl and her grandfather together.

Maddie (Deanne Lorette) is angry when her parents bring the grandfather (Christopher Neiman) home to live with them. She resists his overtures of friendship, complaining to her friend James (Tim Bui) that her grandfather should be “in a place with people like him.”

James is close to his Vietnamese grandmother (Hisa Takakuwa) and doesn’t share Maddie’s negative feelings. He gives her the translation of a folk story his grandmother told him, and Maddie finds herself living it, becoming an Asian princess haunted by the flute song of a humble fisherman (Dwight Richard Odle’s costumes are eye-pleasers).

The traditional Asian-style play-within-a-play, gracefully staged by director John-David Keller with choreography by Diane Doyle, invites Maddie--and the audience--to appreciate the “river of time” that connects us all, and the young song that can live inside an old heart.

Written with care by Richard Hellesen, the play delivers its intended message of tolerance and understanding, and though its performances of Michael Silversher’s songs are somewhat haphazard, the cast of youthful adults is engaging. Still, however appealing the cast, it’s difficult not to wonder how much more powerful the message might have been if the roles of grandmother and grandfather had been played by age-appropriate actors.

* “My Mom’s Dad” will be presented in Crystal Court at the South Coast Plaza mall, Sunflower Avenue and Bear Street, Costa Mesa, today and next Saturday at 2 p.m. Free. (714) 957-4033.