FAMILY THEATER REVIEW : ‘Finding Home’ Delivers a Message of Understanding

“It’s like I’m Sega and they’re Nintendo.” That’s how newcomer Burger describes his discomfort in South Coast Repertory’s entertaining Educational Touring Production of the musical “Finding Home,” when he can’t understand the language or the customs in mythical Aboland.

The show’s theme embraces the need to respect differences and find common ground for understanding; it isn’t subtle (and the cast’s musical talents are modest), but it is delivered with humor and visual excitement--Dwight Richard Odle’s wildly patterned, tropical fantasy costumes, giant puppet heads and veggie hats are terrific.

And, although the musical was written for the company’s 1984 school tour and for a “Drama of Immigration” project by SCR’s dramaturge Jerry Patch and Michael Bigelow Dixon, the revival is obviously timely--despite its retro surfer hero Burger (Kevin M. Gregg) and his “gnarly,” “hoe-daddies” surfer-speak.

Directed by John-David Keller, with music and lyrics by Diane King Vann and choreography by Diane Doyle, the show concludes that rather than a melting pot, a better metaphor for unity might be a salad bowl: “We’re all different vegetables, but we come from the same garden.”

The public can see the show free as part of the Imagination Celebration arts festival in Orange County, Saturday at Westminster Mall and April 30 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s back lot.

* “Finding Home,” Westminster Mall, Bolsa Avenue and Goldenwest Street, Saturday at 10:30 a.m.; (714) 898-2558, and Orange County Performing Arts Center back lot, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, April 30 at 12:10 p.m.; (714) 556-ARTS. Free.