A Sparkling Revival of Classic ‘Gaslight’ : Theater review: The style and tone are just right, with a sense of naturalism that shines throughout the Laguna Playhouse’s production.

Augustin Daly’s “Under the Gaslight” was one of the most popular 19th century melodramas.

In the Laguna Playhouse’s stylish revival, the play’s colors look primary, its volume seems a bit loud. But it’s still a lot of fun, with heroines switched in their cribs when babies, a breathtaking railroad track rescue, and a hero who has weaknesses along with matinee-idol looks and an ability to change emotional horses in midstream.

Director Andrew Barnicle knows the territory. The production’s style and tone are just right, with a sense of naturalism that shines throughout. The heightened intensity of the acting couldn’t be more perfect for this period piece, and Barnicle has managed to re-create the effect of one of those traveling troupes that entertained towns small and big a century and a half ago, even beyond the program listing of actors as “Mr. Antonik” or “Miss Mears.”

There is the striking grandeur in Teressa McKillop’s attitude and delivery as Laura Courtland who, we are told, is an orphan instead of the well-born young lady everyone believes her to be. McKillop is impeccable not only as Laura, but also subliminally as the leading lady of a touring company.

Stephen Kean Mathews creates the same double-edged impression as Ray Trafford, the playboy who refutes his engagement to Laura when he hears of her sordid birth. Stalwart and intent as ever a hero could be, his Ray seems to mask a leading man who might be thinking of an after-theater supper with one of the troupe’s young ladies.

The company’s character actress, played by Jennifer Taub, is as young as many character actresses were in those days. She doubles artfully as a self-righteous society matron bent on destroying Laura, and as the evil, grubby Old Judas who claims falsely to be Laura’s mother. Her vile cohort, the drooling Byke, is marvelously held just enough in check in a performance by John Abbot Gardiner, who gives such a surprised look at the first audience hiss that he surely must be, as the troupe’s character man, used to playing more sympathetic roles.

Michael Antonik is one-armed Civil War veteran Snorkey. He appears to have a marvelous time playing a younger character man getting a shot at the ripe role of this gold-hearted deus ex machina . The company’s “second woman” is Ryan Kray, whose specialty must be comedy, for she infuses much humor into the role of the other Courtland, Pearl, and allows the audience to like her even when she is at her most flagrantly heartless.

Patty Mears, obviously the company’s ingenue, is charming and often funny as Peachblossom, a “girl who was never brought up” but who devotes her life to Laura, and Frank Davis doubles ably as a waffling judge and a voluble railroad signalman.

David Reed and Steve Ross play bon vivants and others, and are especially notable in their period-perfect renditions of olio numbers in front of the curtain, as are several of the troupe’s young ladies. Nanci Sterling and Kevin Deegan do well in small roles.

The only disturbing note is Barnicle’s casting of Diane Bass and Tiffany Solano as the male street urchins who help Snorkey and others push the plot along. Their antics are out of place in Barnicle’s naturalistic treatment, and even in a poverty row traveling rep, this type of replacement would occur only in a dire emergency.

* “Under the Gaslight,” Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. today, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $10-$30. (714) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.