STAGE REVIEW : ‘DRIVING’ TAKES A LOOK INSIDE LIFE OF A CHILD

Think back to when you were 5. Every day brought a new question. Why did the moon follow you home from Gram’s house? Was Red Skelton a skeleton? Why did Daddy go to work so much? Would you ever learn to tie your own shoes?

The inner life of the 5-year-old is too intense, sometimes, for him or her to bear (let alone his parents). But can it be put on the stage? Playwright Patrick Smith and a good cast bring it off at least part of the time in “Driving Around the House” at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage.

Smith’s play is a series of snippets from his childhood (circa 1963) in Middletown, Ohio, loosely arranged into a chain of meaning. At the end, young Paddy (Joe Dahlman) knows how to tie his shoes, but doesn’t understand why his father (Michael Canavan) can’t live at home anymore, or why his grandfather (Tom Rosqui) had to die. The questions don’t get easier.

The play’s chauffeur, if you will, is Grown-up Paddy (Timothy Donoghue). He does have some answers, and a good many of the scenes are his understanding from 20 years later of what must have been happening between Mother (Jane Atkins) and Dad at the time--his drinking, his girlfriends, her final decision that he simply wasn’t grown-up enough to be trusted.

These scenes are well-reasoned and well-acted and give the play a spine that it probably needs. It might have been more interesting, however, to view them strictly through young Paddy’s eyes, as yet one more mystery he has to figure out.

The play’s most original scenes focus on Paddy and his 4-year-old sister, Debbie (Gabrielle Sinclair.) They concern the wonder and terror of early childhood, and they are played without condescension.

Debbie has a nightmare where she can’t stop flying ; Daddy talks her down. Paddy is warned by Daddy to stop making noise in his room; he immediately jumps off the top bunk. Paddy and Debbie find some old toys in the dark part of the cellar, where they’re not supposed to go.

Daddy gets mad when Paddy can’t follow his simple instructions on how to tie shoes. Daddy (on a reality kick) tells Debbie and Paddy that he’s sure they’re too old to believe in Santa Claus, aren’t they?

‘I’m 4; I’m not too old,” Debbie says with utter gravity.

She isn’t sure where the discussion is going, but she is positive that at her age it is absolutely proper for a person to believe in Santa Claus. Actress Sinclair, a grown-up, allows herself some cute-little-girl mannerisms earlier in the play, but here a real child shines through.

Joe Dahlman as little Paddy never once falls into cuteness. Again, we see a person who happens to be 5 years old and who takes things very hard. For instance, when President Kennedy is shot, he mixes this up with the idea of Daddy getting shot--though he knows the difference, really.

That’s the meat in “Driving Around the House” (which does not have a go-cart scene). In the end, material this slight may work better on the page, where it’s so much easier to show what’s going on in a character’s head. But it’s enjoyable to key in to Smith’s memories and to feel them dislodge memories of one’s own childhood.

John Ivo Gilles’ set contributes to that, with its background photomural of bare trees, taking on the pink of a winter sunset under Brian Gale’s lights. Of the actors, the honors go to the “children” and to Donoghue, who shows us his past without getting too swept up in it. I also liked Richard Doyle as Uncle Billy, who finds contentment (but loses charisma) when he leaves the priesthood and gets married. Martin Benson directed, gently.

The production plays at 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, at 8 p.m. Sundays, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Closes Feb. 16.

655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. (714) 957-4033.

‘DRIVING AROUND THE HOUSE’ Patrick Smith’s play, at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage. Director Martin Benson. Setting John Ivo Gilles. Costumes Charles Tomlinson. Lighting Brian Gale. Sound Stephen Shaffer. Production manager Paul Hammond. Stage manager Andy Tighe. With Timothy Donoghue, Jane Atkins, Michael Canavan, Joe Dahlman, Tom Rosqui, Gabrielle Sinclair, Richard Doyle. Plays at 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, at 8 p.m. Sundays, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Closes Feb. 16. 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. (714) 957-4033.