Long Yellow-Brick Road

Until the Royal Shakespeare Company enlisted John Kane earlier this decade to adapt “The Wizard of Oz,” it was a strange phenomenon that one of the best musicals ever written, care of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist-writer E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, wasn’t done onstage. (And, no, “The Wiz,” that other stage version of the L. Frank Baum classic, is no substitute.)

Now “Oz” is regularly onstage, yet you have to wonder whether this constitutes progress. Such misguided star castings as Mickey Rooney and Eartha Kitt haven’t worked, and even on a Broadway-scale budget, the magic onstage isn’t remotely close to Victor Fleming’s original MGM masterpiece, something driven home early this year with the release of a brilliantly restored color print.

Besides--and for kids, this is crucial--that original delivers Judy Garland back home to Kansas in a swift 101 minutes; Kane’s adaptation, reinserting some material wisely trimmed from the movie, is a long 150 minutes.

At La Habra Depot Theatre, the show is being done on a community theater budget, with community theater results. (La Habra’s program even fails to mention Kane, Arlen or Harburg.)

The kids will enjoy some of the kids performing and will get some frights (especially from the Wicked Witch’s gang of monkeys), but they’re bound to get tired before Dorothy leaves The Emerald City in an Act II that never seems to end. This “Oz” is kid’s play, but only up to a point.

Parents and teens who know the movie by heart will note that Kane has stuck faithfully to the film script, down to minor exchanges by the Kansas farm folk, the cons of Professor Marvel who becomes Oz himself (Kevin Williams, too young for either role) and Dorothy’s (Brooke Bucellato) meetings with each of her Land of Oz companions: the Scarecrow (Ryan Mekenian), Tinman (Joel Wright) and Lion (Ryan Domis). A few end-of-scene jokes and puns (Dorothy: “How can anyone be so mean and cruel?” Wicked Witch: “Lots and lots of practice!”) are additional material, but they really add little.

The most substantial addition, the silly dance number “The Jitterbug,” in which Dorothy and her pals dance with the monkeys, is in the stage version only because it provides a dance number. It’s so painfully out of whack with the rest of the Arlen-Harburg score that it brings the show to a halt during an already halting Act II; while waiting for the number to end, you can only wonder how history might have changed if MGM had retained “The Jitterbug” and cut “Over the Rainbow,” as originally planned.

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Bucellato is a game Dorothy, almost eerily duplicating Garland’s speaking inflections, and especially her teen-girl pathos. This is a story, after all, about a girl feeling burned by life’s unfairness and creatively arranging retribution in her dreams.

Her singing needs work, with some notes passionately hit and some ringing flat, but she projects an energy that most of director Susan Marx’s production lacks. From the tornado scene to the emergence of the various witches, the stage magic here isn’t charming in a low-budget sense. It just comes off as half-done.

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Having as much fun as Bucellato are Mekenian’s terrific Scarecrow, Wright’s engaging Tinman and Amanda Malm’s crackling Wicked Witch. Rachel Craig as Glinda has an amusing side to her goodness.

Just as it might not have been the wisest idea to have Bucellato imitate Garland, it doesn’t work for Domis to imitate Bert Lahr’s Lion.

Most of the kids look like they’re having fun in costume, and Marx handles the group traffic--and the well-behaved little dog Rocky Presentadi as Toto--along the Yellow Brick Road.

* “Wizard of Oz,” La Habra Depot Theatre, 311 S. Euclid Ave. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sunday. $10-$12. Ends Aug. 21. (562) 947-6991. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Brooke Bucellato: Dorothy

Ryan Mekenian: Scarecrow/Hunk

Joel Wright: Tinman/Hickory

Ryan Domis: Lion/Zeke

Amanda Malm: Wicked Witch/Miss Gulch

Rachel Craig: Glinda/Auntie Em

Kevin Williams: Oz/Professor Marvel

Jonathan Tapia: Emerald City Guard/Uncle Henry

A La Habra Depot Theatre production. Music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and A.Y. Harburg. Book by John Kane. Based on L. Frank Baum’s story. Directed by Susan Marx. Music director: Shawn Taylor. Choreographer: Frankie Marrone. Set and stage manager: Shawn Dehart. Costumes: Leslie Hanstad. Makeup: Kevin Williams.