FAMILY REVIEW : TAFFY: Fresher and Friendlier

Victorian pigs, frogs and possums danced on the green; wacky comedians held forth under the oaks; swing music jazzed up the hillside amphitheater, and jugglers with torches lit up the clearing. There were storytellers, comic singers, Japanese dancers and shaggy trolls, and audience members got into the act too, parading in costumes, painting pumpkins, playing “Dunk the Dweeb,” making masks, drawing inside a giant plastic bubble and writing poetry.

Fresher and more family friendly than ever, the ninth annual Theatre Arts Festival for Youth--TAFFY for short--held this weekend at the Peter Strauss Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, again proved to be one of the best entertainment tickets of the year for the stroller crowd, older children and their grown-ups.

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The majority of the weekend’s 4,500 festival-goers attended Sunday--the threat of rain kept the crowds away Saturday--but creative planning kept things from feeling too crowded, while a fairy-tale storytelling site called “Castle Tales” and a new “Little Dumplin’s” play area kept toddlers’ spirits from flagging.

Top professional children’s entertainment is at the heart of TAFFY, and it was nonstop, as performances went on at several sites around the rustic mountain venue. Among the highlights:

* The ‘30s swing sounds of Vocal Works, a quintet that re-creates an old-time radio hour complete with ad jingles and static.

* Veteran comics Schwartz and Chung, who earned big laughs with their trademark off-the-wall comedy sketches and mime routines.

* Award-winning storyteller Diane Ferlatte’s comic, animated tale about a frog and a snake, making a subtle point about prejudice.

* The delightfully loopy puppets of Ranka’s Marionette Revue, performing feats of strength, opera arias and trumpet solos.

Adding to the mix were minstrel-storyteller Paul Tracey, San Francisco’s Banana Slug String Band and the We Tell Stories theater troupe headed by Carl Weintraub. J. P. Nightingale closed the event with stories and songs.

Throughout the day the tireless Puddledumplin’ Players, actors in superb animal makeup and Victorian costume, interacted with children, held an election and put on a play in the Penny Pit Theatre, while Ben & Jerry’s solar-powered Traveling Show Bus tickled funny bones with a zany circus and vaudeville combination of comedy, juggling, magic and dance.

In keeping with the family affirming spirit of the nonprofit festival, tickets were donated to underserved children, low-cost tickets were given to school groups for a weekday TAFFY program and proceeds from food sales went to the San Fernando Valley-based Tree of Life to provide groceries for the needy.

Before the event, producer John Wood expressed concern that this year’s funding shortages could mean that TAFFY might not have a 10th year. Southland families would be the poorer for its loss.