GRIPS Theater Brings ‘Al’s Pal’ to Taper, Too : Families: Berlin’s maverick troupe’s comedy about a lonely man is aimed at kids. ‘Even the hardest problems you can talk about in a humorous way,’ its founder says.

German authorities in the ‘60s and ‘70s said it would “destroy the souls of children and indoctrinate kids to communism.” Today, however, Berlin’s maverick GRIPS Theater, with its political cabaret roots, is renowned as one of the world’s leading theaters for youth audiences.

GRIPS’ production of “Al’s Pal,” a one-man comedy for ages 5 to 10 about a lonely man befriended by an abrasive, nagging worm, will be presented on Saturday at 1 and 3 p.m. and on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Taper, Too at the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood.

The performances by GRIPS actor Thomas Ahrens are part of a free, two-day symposium on theater for young people, sponsored by the Goethe Institut in association with the Mark Taper Forum, and led by GRIPS’ founder and artistic director Volker Ludwig. A workshop dealing with “Line 1,” GRIPS’ acclaimed subway odyssey for teens, happens Sunday at 4 p.m.

“We always do comedies, because we have seen that even the hardest problems you can talk about in a humorous way,” Ludwig said, speaking by telephone from Germany, with English backup from his deputy, Peter Gilbert.

“Al’s Pal,” a Swedish play by By-Teatern Stockholm, became “a typical GRIPS play,” Ludwig explained, by having the worm represent “the typical GRIPS child”: one who teaches adults “the simple basics of life, how to enjoy themselves, how to live.”

Ideas for the company’s plays, most of which are written by Ludwig, come from its audience.

“They asked us to write plays about problems with parents beating (them), with foreigners, problems between boys and girls, with extreme right-wing young people, the environment, drugs . . . plays about the reality of their lives.”

The frank and often gritty treatment of youth-oriented issues is not meant “to aggravate parents and make them angry,” Gilbert interjected, “but to give them a nudge and say there are a few things here to pay attention to.”

GRIPS (meaning wit, a quickness to grasp things) was born out of the radical student protest movement of the ‘60s. Seeking new challenges, Ludwig and his satirical Reichskabarett troupe of adult theater professionals began performing for children.

“We began with realistic plays at a time when there were only fairy tales for kids,” Ludwig said. “Thirty years ago, we had no children’s theater in (West) Germany, only Christmas fairy tales in the big theaters done at a very, very low level.”

The company had to “fight till the end of the ‘70s with politicians in our city,” who questioned GRIPS’ agenda. Its victory was underscored when “Line 1” was named “the best German play” in 1987, despite “a huge argument about whether (as youth theater) it was too trivial or not.”

Today GRIPS receives 3.5 million marks (about $2.2 million) of its more than 4-million mark budget as a government subsidy; Ludwig’s plays have been translated into 38 languages and are produced worldwide, “including Pakistan, India and Canada.

“Now,” Ludwig noted with unmistakable satisfaction, “we are very well known and even the conservative government is supporting us because they need us for the image of our city.”

Peter Brosius, the artistic director of the Improvisational Theatre Project, the Mark Taper Forum’s professional youth theater, hopes that the symposium will lead to a production of “Line 1” in Los Angeles in the near future.

“Seeing the work of the GRIPS theater was one of the turning points in my life,” Brosius said. “I saw a company that was ferocious in its dedication, thoroughly theatrical and able to create work that was dangerous, alive and vital.

“This is the company that was critical to my thinking that one could make theater for young people that truly mattered and that would be extraordinary theater as well.”

“Line 1” “a moving, painful, funny tale” about an innocent’s journey into the city, is appropriate for Los Angeles, Brosius said, both because it and Berlin are “filled with surprise and danger. I hope this is the beginning of a process in finding a way to make the piece (happen) here.”