Children’s Theater Reviews : ‘Music Man’ Storms River City, Captures Hill : A young cast in Buena Park has little trouble slipping into the turn-of-the-century Midwest, with Meredith Willson’s traveling con man played as Mr. Smooth.

Led by a clutch of capable teen-age actors, the Buena Park Youth Theatre’s staging of “The Music Man” is as warm and satisfying as a stack of flapjacks on a cold I-o-way morning.

First produced in 1957, Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” contains scraps Willson remembered from his own Iowa boyhood, and this staging, directed by Ruth Walp, does a crackerjack job of capturing the nostalgia believably and with the right touch of irony.

That’s a challenging task considering that, to most of these 6- to 19-year-old actors, the mores of turn-of-the-century Midwestern society must seem the most foreign of foreign policies.

Despite some awkwardness from the younger members, the cast slips into Willson’s portrait of the fictional River City with ease.

Joe Alfred Lopez Jr. makes the transition most gracefully as Prof. Harold Hill, the traveling con man who slides into the citizens’ hearts and pocketbooks but gets his foot caught in the door, and his own heart unlatched, trying to make his way out.

Hill’s there’s-a-sucker-born-every-minute outlook makes him a character that would be easy for an unseasoned actor to overplay, but Lopez avoids that temptation.

Instead of being a broad, brassy, in-your-face con man, Lopez’s Hill is Mr. Smooth. Seeking a market for his youth band (for which he happens to sell instruments, uniforms and lessons), Hill stirs the residents’ ire over the pool table that has just been installed in the local billiard parlor, a sure-fire implement of moral decay among River City’s youth.

But even during the fire- and-brimstone musical sermon in “Trouble,” Lopez maintains a light touch, letting the townspeople whip themselves into a righteous frenzy all their own.

Later, when he recognizes that Marian is on to his scam and he attempts to win her over, he plays his line like a skilled fisherman until she’s hooked. Which, this being musical theater, she eventually is.

With the exception of Hill’s, most of the featured roles are double cast in this show. On Sunday, Summer Wybaczynsky played Marian, River City’s strait-laced librarian and tireless champion of intellectual improvement. Wybaczynsky, like Lopez, keeps things reasonably low key.

Her Marian is stiff-backed at first but eventually demonstrates some nice inner conflict when she’s torn between her better judgment and her lonely heart. She warms to Lopez’s Hill in a way that never seems forced or far-fetched.

She is also an extremely capable singer. Even in a meandering ballad like “My White Knight,” she’s a pleasure to the ear. Actors in supporting roles were less consistent, and several times during the two-hour show, the attentions of some of the younger kids tended to fade. Also, Walp’s double casting of ensemble characters caused some confusion (at one point, kids play adults in one scene and children in the next).

*

Despite this, last Sunday’s cast delivered the goods capably. David Barr and Melissa Pike, as blowhard Mayor Shinn and his pompous but secretly free-spirited wife Eulalie (watch for her Grecian urn bit in the Ladies’ Dance Committee number), got plenty of laughs from the adults in the house. So did the bickering between members of the school board-turned-barbershop quartet (Raul Estrada, Rigo De Oliva, Aaron Jackson and Marty Raymondo.

Stephanie Myrant gives some nice character work as Marian’s matchmaking Irish mama, and Craig Watson is delightful as her lisping brother Winthrop, whose transformation symbolizes Hill’s unintentional impact on the town.

With 43 children of different age, size and abilities, one expects some rough dance numbers, but choreographer Robin Perry helped the cast deliver several that were way above the norm for children’s theater.

Especially effective are the rollicking “Shipoopi,” with its snippets of American dance from square dance to the Charleston to Appalachian clogging, and the ever-so-slightly steamy pairings in “Marian the Librarian.”

Costumes, most of them apparently rented, are appealing as well, especially the library kids’ coordinating striped outfits and Marian’s flattering shirtwaist dresses.

Live music by four adult musicians added a professional touch, although the Jerry Lee Lewis tunes they played at pre-show and intermission were baffling. Who knows--maybe, like the good Prof. Hill, the musicians just wanted to shake up the crowd a little.

* “The Music Man,” Buena Park Youth Theatre, Buena Park High School performing arts center, 8833 Academy Drive, Buena Park. Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends Sunday . $3. (714) 562-3844. Running time: 2 hours. Harold Hill: Joe Alfred Lopez Jr.

Mayor Shinn: David Barr / Rigo De Oliva

Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn: Melissa Pike / Renae Winton

Zaneeta Shinn: Lauren Stanley / Jessica Landi

Tommy Djilas: Ryan Herst / Chad Ortega

Marcellus Washburn: Andrew Balcazar

Marian Paroo; Summer Wybaczynsky / Christine Winton

Mrs. Paroo: Stephanie Myrant / Brigid Ward

Winthrop Paroo: Craig Watson / Brandon Force

Presented by Buena Park Youth Theatre. Book, music and lyrics by Meredith Willson. Story by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey. Directed by Ruth Walp. Musical direction: Rob Blaney. Vocal direction: Sherry Knupp. Choreographer: Robin Perry. Sets: Sharell Martin, Teri Landi, Lewie Stier. Sound: Jay Martin. Costumes: Ruth Walp, Sharell Martin, Lori Wright. Lighting: Jim Book / Handless Man Productions.