A Romp Through Modern Forest With ‘Hansel’

It’s amazing how gossip and innuendo can distort truth. Take “Hansel and Gretel.” Common belief holds that these two innocents were mistreated by their stepmother, starved, abandoned, then imprisoned by a cannibalistic witch. Now for the real story.

It seems that if Hansel and Gretel’s busy investment banker parents hadn’t left them alone, the spoiled little snoops wouldn’t have stumbled across the gingerbread retreat of one of TV’s most celebrated cooking show hosts. And, if they hadn’t been caught rifling the place for her secret recipe, the sob story they came up with to avoid blame wouldn’t have taken on a life of its own.

At least, that’s the way Imagination Station sees it in its latest comical flight of fairy tale fancy at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre.

The show opens with what turns out to be the last broadcast of “This Gingerbread House,” as the temperamental Martha Stewart-ish host, Belladona Nightshade (Jennifer Brandt), abruptly quits, tired of the public spotlight.

After retiring secretly to her homemade gingerbread house deep in the woods, Belladona attempts to market her gingerbread cookies with an unscrupulous cookie distributor (Jake Eberle), but he tips off reporters, who are soon hot on her trail.

Meanwhile, bored Hansel (Jon Reed) and Gretel (Shari Getz) are following their noses to Belladona’s aromatic abode. Soon, hounded by the media, with rumors beginning to float that her disappearance involved witchery and her secret recipe in jeopardy, Belladona can’t even find inner peace with her Zen Master (Eberle again). Or can she?

This witty romp, poking fun at everything from celebrity and tabloid media to New Age gurus, skips merrily along, performed with style by the accomplished ensemble. Highlights include the steady stream of genuinely funny dialogue; Reed’s comically dim bulb Hansel, eating their trail of bread crumbs; and Eberle’s skillful turn in several roles, especially his Zen Master Zig Zag Way, helping Belladona discover the path to enlightenment while never losing track of his invisible cup of tea, no matter where and when he sets it down.

Although the sweet, pat ending doesn’t quite live up to the sauciness that precedes it, the main fix this zany, clever show needs is some sort of advance warning that it is going to be a much different “Hansel and Gretel” than usual. Without any introductory setup, the shedding of unmet expectations on the part of some young audience members delays their full engagement.

* “Hansel and Gretel,” Morgan-Wixson Theatre, 2627 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. Saturdays, 10 a.m. and noon; Sundays, 11:30 a.m. $5-$7. Ends June 7. (310) 828-7519.

Picture a World: “We’ll sail a long, long way, and dreams will turn to truth. . . .” Expressing beauty and hope as well as pain, the exhibit “Butterflies Don’t Live Here Anymore” features drawings and poems by children who were imprisoned in the Nazi Terezin concentration camp in Prague. It can be seen at the Jewish Federation’s Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, now until June 7.

The exhibit, from the Jewish Museum of Prague, covers works done between 1942 and 1944 by some of the more than 1,500 children who came through the camp; only a handful would survive.

* Jewish Federation, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Museum Gallery 140, 5700 Wilshire Blvd. Wednesdays and Thursdays, by appointment, through June 7. (213) 761-8170.

Inspiration and Pride: Young performers, ages 9 to 17, explore issues of Latino identity in the United States in “Tropical America,” a new play by Juan Devis and Eliam Kraiem, at Plaza de la Raza’s Margo Albert Theater on Friday and Saturday. The work was inspired by the powerful mural of the same name, painted on an Olvera Street building in 1932 by famed muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros and only recently excavated and recovered.

The theatrical event, which includes a reproduction of the mural, re-created by students and volunteers led by artists Glenna Avila and Patricia Gonzales, is presented by Plaza de la Raza’s School of Performing and Visual Arts and the California Institute of the Arts Community Arts Partnership.

* ‘Tropical America,” Margo Albert Theatre, Plaza de la Raza, 3540 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles. Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Free. (213) 223-2475.