THEATER REVIEW : An Ambitious ‘Oliver!’ Steals Into Ojai Center : Production of the groundbreaking musical looks top-flight, but there are some basic problems.

Important changes have occurred in the Ojai Center for the Arts’ theater program during the last couple of years. Producers have come and gone, shows have been announced and abandoned, and now . . . “Oliver!”

With a cast of more than 75 adults and children working under director Wayne Pickerell, choreographer Jennifer Emery and Jeannie Carlson and music director Steve Emery, and a crew of backstage volunteers said to number 250, it may be the most ambitious project ever seen at the theater. And though there are problems of the most basic sort, the show can be seen as the harbinger of exciting things to come.

Even though it was based on a novel by Elizabethan writer and social critic Charles Dickens, “Oliver!” heralded a revolution in British theater when first performed in 1960. Its portrayal of stark social conditions (including child and spousal abuse and murder) were unusual for a British musical. Lionel Bart, who wrote the show’s music, lyrics and libretto, came from a pop background (he’d written Tommy Steele’s “Rock With the Caveman” and Cliff Richard’s “Living Doll”) and was a lower-class Cockney. So strong were his songs and so powerful were Dickens’ (and Bart’s) story that American producer David Merrick imported the show to the United States, where it became a huge success and the first major British export in a chain that led to the success of Andrew Lloyd Webber and that lot.

The show had been announced as a production of the Cabrillo Music Theater later this year, but producer Cameron Mackintosh, who has revived “Oliver!” in London, made it unavailable to certain community and professional theater groups. How Ojai escaped the ban is anybody’s guess.

Although the show is presented in the relatively small Ojai Center for the Arts, it certainly looks like a top-flight production: Robert Cobel’s evocative set is as impressive as any seen in Ventura County during the past several years.

The costumes, nearly a hundred of them, are all quite nice, too, though this is probably the cleanest-looking group of orphans and assorted street folk you’ll ever see. More important, the feel of this “Oliver!” has been sanitized, with most of the strong ethnicity of Fagin removed.

Otherwise, Fagin--the show’s central character, who recruits orphaned boys and teaches them to pick pockets--is admirably played by Doug Friedlander. It’s a rich role, which Friedlander plays with as much relish as befits such a hammy part.

Don Houle is menacing as the thuggish Bill Sikes, and Lorraine MacDonald is effective as Nancy, the woman who worships him “As Long as He Needs Me.” Marty Babayco and Marianne Ilges-Johnston share many of the show’s finest comic moments as Mr. Bumble and Widow Corney. And Mario Diaz-Moresco and Tyson Babayco play the leading boys’ roles: Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger.

The score, played on a synthesizer by Steve Emery, works quite well.

Problems? There are several, starting with the unavailability of programs before intermission at the performance I reviewed; a new and unnecessarily complicated seat numbering system, and credits in which the performers’ and crews’ names are listed by their last names, in alphabetical order: that isn’t a credit sheet, it’s a high school football roster, and good luck figuring out whom does what.

The cast has the performance down; now all they have to do is loosen up a bit so they don’t look like animatronic statues most of the time.

There are enough kids singing and dancing up there that parents and schoolmates should fill most of the seats for some time. But even for those few Ventura County residents who aren’t related to a cast member, this “Oliver!” is generally commendable, and bodes well for the future of this generation of Ojai Center for the Arts’ theater productions.

Details

* WHAT: “Oliver!”

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through Sept. 3 (except Aug. 6 when the Sunday performance will be at 4 p.m.).

* WHERE: Ojai Arts Center, 113 S. Montgomery St., Ojai.

* HOW MUCH: $12 (general admission), $10 (seniors and Arts Center members), $7 (children 11 and under).

* CALL: 646-0117 or 964-3688.