Strange Doings

TV sets explode, dishes and chairs move all by themselves, a cake mysteriously appears out of nowhere, and Mom, Dad and pesky Brother suddenly disappear: There’s something strange happening at 10-year-old Lucy’s house, and her invisible friend is in the thick of it.

In “Invisible Friends,” by Alan Ayckbourn (“Absurd Person Singular,” “The Norman Conquests”), all the odd goings-on begin with a family’s failure to communicate, a common theme in the internationally renowned British playwright’s adult works.

Seldom staged in this country, the play is having its Los Angeles premiere in a professionally produced, two-week presentation that will benefit the Wonderland Avenue School, a public elementary “arts prototype school,” which provides a major focus on arts education in its curriculum.

“It’s about a girl who comes home bursting with the exciting news that she got on the school swimming team, and literally no one hears her,” said director Matt Chait, a stage veteran who owns the five-theater Complex in Hollywood.

A family contretemps ensues, and the girl, Lucy, is sent to bed without her dinner.

“There’s a lightning storm,” Chait said, “and she falls and hits her head, and you never quite know whether she’s in a ‘Wizard of Oz’ dream thing, or if she’s entered into another reality--also very Alan Ayckbourn-ish.”

Things become very strange indeed when Lucy’s long-treasured invisible friend manifests, slyly persuading Lucy to make the real family disappear, while the “friend’s” own troublesome father and brother move in. In the “happy reconciliation,” after a great deal of wacky mischief, Lucy’s family is reminded not only of the importance of listening, but also of just how much they cherish their daughter.

Chait, who performs in the show, along with other adult stage pros Angela Wallace and Michael Rosner, is pleased with his student cast; the two young actresses who play the demanding leads, Cella Mariani as Lucy and Devon Porter as the invisible friend, are “wonderful.”

In fact, Chait said he committed to doing the play only when he knew that Cella, the daughter of two of his former acting students, was available, citing her experience and talent, and her close-to-photographic memory.

“One reason this play is hard to produce is that the central character is a really daunting role. She’s supposed to be 13, but in our play, because we’re an elementary school, she’s not quite 11. She is unbelievable. She’s been working on this since the summer.”

It’s not entirely authentic Ayckbourn, however. “I had to Americanize it a little bit to avoid the prospect of having 8- and 10-year-olds trying to do English accents,” he said. “We relocated the play to Southern California.”

With a budget of about $3,000 and a cadre of parent volunteers who work in theater and film to design sound, costume, art and sound effects, and provide technical support, plus “probably $30,000 worth of donated equipment,” Chait said, “we have converted what is essentially a cafeteria into a theater. In addition to building an elaborate set, with five rooms, and the inside and outside of the house, we have laid cable, hung pipes, and put in a complete sound system. We’ve literally built a theater there.”

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* “Invisible Friends,” Wonderland Avenue School, 8510 Wonderland Ave., Laurel Canyon, Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Jan. 30. $10. (818) 771-8630.