Family-Pleasing Holiday Tale in ‘Wales’

“A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Dylan Thomas’ vibrant, day-in-the-life look back at childhood Christmases in a small Welsh town, is a theatrical holiday staple with good reason: The humor and poignancy in this full portrait of time and place resonate with adults; children respond to its lively reminiscences of rowdy play and its dreamlike sense of Christmas magic.

In Action/Reaction Theater Company’s staging of the piece, directed by Michael Holmes, Welsh narrator Clive Rees does loving justice to Thomas’ words with expressive warmth and tenderness. In Holmes’ bare-bones staging, the rest of the cast--Jason Cramer, Jill Durso, Joseph M. Hoffman, Steve Jarrard, Walter Lawson, Kathy Pearson and JC Wyckoff--offers serviceable support to Rees’ lilting performance.

In the tiny, black box theater with its cozy seats and microscopic lobby, the actors portray the characters of all ages that are so alive in Thomas’ poem. They act out romps in the snow and wild games of indoor and outdoor pretend; the child-pleasing, lengthy opening of presents; a ghostly thrill or two, and the keenly observed, curious and comical goings-on of hearty uncles, and small, quietly tippling aunts and other adults.

Unfortunately, this holiday offering is a double bill. The seemingly under-rehearsed, uninspired “Dear Santa” opens the show.

Hoffman plays Santa, clad in red long johns, reading children’s letters with cloying sweetness; the rest of the actors play the child authors and elves. The “letters” are mundane and the actors’ cutesy portrayals of how young children speak are wince-inducing.

The opener also includes a tale about a scary Christmas cat, punctuated by loud shrieking from the actors, and, more likable, a rendition of “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” during which Hoffman’s Santa distributes candy canes to the audience.

*

“A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” Action/Reaction Theater Company at the Chandler Studio, 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood, Saturdays and Sundays at 4 p.m. Ends Dec. 16. $10. (818) 908-4094. Running time: 1 hour.