Under Kaleidoscope, ‘Trouble’ Looks Good : Theater: Cal State Fullerton’s traveling troupe finds that its children’s play with arguing parents is one of its most popular ever.

When Cal State Fullerton theater and dance professors Ronald and Lynn Wood first began to develop “The Trouble With Nick” for the college’s Kaleidoscope Players drama group, they were concerned about how their children’s play might be perceived. After all, it would be the first work in their troupe’s 18-year history of presenting youth-oriented drama to directly portray bickering parents.

Now they believe they were right. “The Trouble With Nick” was performed last year in more than 40 Orange County schools and became one of the troupe’s most popular offerings ever. In fact, the husband-and-wife writing and directing team decided to restage “The Trouble With Nick,” the tale of a boy’s search for emotional awareness and self-expression, in 1995. The traveling company of 13 Cal State Fullerton students will present three performances of the 45-minute play this weekend at the university. On Monday, the group, with an almost entirely new cast this year, will begin visiting local schools with the same production. Most performances will take place at elementary and middle schools, with some shows in high schools.

Kids, Wood says, respond to identifiable characters and genuine situations. The Woods felt a need to create a play reflecting this harsher reality.

Still, Ronald Wood said, “We wondered, ‘Is this too strong? Is this going to blow the younger kids out of the water?’ We get some very young kids at our public performances. This may be a sad commentary on our times, but the arguing parents seemed to be very familiar, even to the youngest of children.”

Added Lynn Wood: “In many cases, what we’re presenting is not nearly as bad as what’s going on in (some of the kids’) own homes. But the more real we can get with this, the more we can get those kids to heave a sigh of relief knowing that they’re not (alone).”

“The Trouble With Nick” has the decidedly serious intention of empowering kids by putting them in touch with feelings they are sometimes taught to hide. In the play, Nick is afraid to go to school because he feels like a social misfit. Instead of helping him understand his fears, his parents tell him to ignore or alter his feelings of insecurity.

Identifying has been easy for the actors.

“Last year during the final rehearsal process, the actors were trying to improvise what they would say to the father without blaming him,” recalls Lynn Wood. “But they couldn’t get to any of those things. All the actors were sobbing. They said, ‘We can’t do this because our own families never solved any problems, so we don’t have any models to follow.’ ”

“The Trouble With Nick” is hardly a dour affair. Featuring singing, music, dancing and a colorful fantasy character named Emo (short for Emotion), it’s also designed to entertain and to encourage audience involvement.

The Kaleidoscope Players require a full academic-year commitment. In return, actors receive theater-department class credit, though participation is not limited to theater students.

The fall semester is spent preparing the actors for working with kids and teaching them the company’s philosophy.

Performances begin in February; the troupe plans to extend its tour through mid-June to fulfill schools’ demand for “The Trouble With Nick.”

The Woods are bothered by the perception that children’s plays are less meaningful than adult drama. To harbor this attitude, they say, undervalues children and their emotional problems.

“I have a sense that our plays are really doing something important,” Ronald Wood says. “I think the audiences actually leave with something having happened to them that might make a difference.”

* The Kaleidoscope Players perform “The Trouble With Nick” tonight at the Arena Theatre, Cal State Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. 7 p.m.; also Saturday and Sunday, 1 and 4 p.m. $3 and $5. (714) 773-3371.