Theater Review : The Sun Comes Out on Theater League’s ‘Annie’

“Why any kid would want to be an orphan, I’ll never know,” sneers Jo Anne Worley as the hilariously despicable, booze-addled orphanage despot Miss Hannigan in Theater League’s revival of “Annie” at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

Squealing with delight as she inflicts each new tyranny on her charges, Worley inhabits this plum role with the deceptive ease that goes with veteran professionalism.

So does her co-headliner, John Schuck, as Daddy Warbucks, the tight billionaire who’s brought in touch with his human side by the diminutive title character (Jenny Hintze). Director-choreographer Michael Lancy ensures that the Martin Charnin-Charles Strouse-Thomas Meehan feel-good musical glows with all the requisite warm fuzzies--Hintze’s Annie has plenty of spunky charisma (even when she’s struggling with some of the songs’ upper ranges), Schuck’s transformation from harried tycoon to caring parent plays with heartfelt dignity without lapsing into sappiness, and for good measure, Annie’s dog Sandy makes periodic cameos for adorably well-trained tugs at the heartstrings.

Joining Worley to sing and dance their way to “Easy Street,” Michael G. Hawkins and Karen Needle are a campy hoot as a pair of con artists posing as Annie’s long-lost parents to collect the reward money.

Lancy’s tightly focused staging brings impressive efficiency to the ensemble, even in the notoriously difficult children’s production numbers (“It’s a Hard-Knock Life” and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile”). A surprising fizzle, though, is “N.Y.C.,” a lackluster homage to the Big Apple. Fortunately, the sun comes out in full splendor for “Tomorrow.”

The songs remain the same, but “Annie’s” Depression-era setting and its championing of New Deal idealism faces a tougher audience today than in the prevailing social climate when the show premiered in 1977. It’s a sign of the times that the evening’s biggest laughs follow Warbucks’ remark about the newly elected Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I know he’s a Democrat, but he’s a human being too.”

Perhaps anticipating the shifted perspective of its audience, the seething anger in the “Hooverville” number, set amid the shanties of the destitute under the 59th Street Bridge, has been distinctly muted: It’s delivered by an as kempt and lily-white assortment of bums as you’re likely to find in cartoonland.

Despite Tom Hatten’s agreeable portrayal of FDR as a kindly, sometimes endearingly maladroit social benefactor, we can all take grudging comfort in the fact that Annie’s rags-to-riches saga is accomplished entirely through private sector intervention. Even the unpleasantness in the orphanage is depicted as an aberration happily put right, no doubt to the great relief of unwed welfare mothers everywhere.

* “Annie,” Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, Probst Center, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Tonight, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $29.50-$35.50. (805) 583-8700, (213) 480-3232, (714) 740-2000. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.