Actors Serve as Theater’s Building Blocks

In the fifth annual Occidental Children’s Theater show, artistic director Jamie Angell andhis company once again provide a summer treat with enough genuine humor and eye-opening, creative physicality to thoroughly entertain adults too.

In its deft, minimalist trademark style, the company brings to life humorous folk tales from India, the Philippines and Russia along with the show’s wildly silly centerpiece: “Rapunzilla, the Monster With the Golden Hair.”

If you’ve never been there before, your expectations may flag a bit when you see the performance space in Occidental College’s Remsen Bird Hillside amphitheater: tented areas with folding chairs and cushions; an open rectangle defined by wooden poles lying on the grass; two worn, rolled-up Turkish carpets. Where are the sets, the props?

The actors enter from one side, six college students and theater professionals in T-shirts and sweatpants. Hmm. No costumes to speak of, either.

Any concerns that this minimalist approach means minimal entertainment are soon dispelled. “The Monkey and the Crocodile” begins, and the actors dive into the action, often quite literally, bouncing the comic narration back and forth.

It begins when Ryan Sullivan, playing the shrewd monkey, must clamber up an apple tree. But where’s the tree? Will all the action take place in the narrative? Nope. In an instant, two ensemble members have deftly fitted themselves together to become that tree, and there the monkey sits, tossing apples to hungry Mr. Crocodile (Ursula McClelland).

*

Then comes the next “wow” moment, and you know you’re in good hands: Dimwitted Mr. Crocodile “swims” down the river to his jealous, meat-craving wife (Keight Gleason), and three actors--the river--launch themselves underneath McClelland and roll along the grass side by side, propelling her over the waves, humming surfer music.

The clever, unexpected comic touches and visual humor continue. In “The Fisherman’s Daughter,” a jellyfish (Sullivan) gives a witty Beat poet recitation. In “Daughter and Stepdaughter,” Uma Nithipalan and 6-foot, 6-inch Joe Chandler merge into a huge bear, testing the character of good daughter Masha (Angela Berliner) and bad stepdaughter Gertrude (another comic turn by Sullivan).

The actors, directed by Angell, with Nick Erickson as movement coach, use only the wooden poles and a few swaths of cloth for props, employing their bodies to form doorways, stoves, walls, wagons, plants, chairs, even a spinning wheel. It’s remarkably effective.

The hourlong show wraps up with a delicious performance by Chandler as Rapunzilla, the Monster With the Golden Hair, half Godzilla, half fairy-tale princess. She’s the result of a pregnant woman’s craving for the genetically altered vegetables growing in a mad scientist’s garden.

Like backyard barbecues and a day at the beach, Occidental Children’s Theater has become one of summer’s simple pleasures.

BE THERE

“Rapunzilla, the Monster With the Golden Hair,” Occidental College, Remsen Bird Hillside Theatre, 1600 Campus Road, Eagle Rock, Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. Ends Aug. 19. $8, adults; $4, ages 12 and under. (323) 259-2922.