FAMILY : ‘Aesop’ Offers a Traveling Feast of Fables

“L adies and gentlemen, sons and daughters of the human race. . . .” So opens “Animal Fables From Aesop,” a fully staged, exquisite children’s theater production, one of the strongest efforts to date by the respected Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis. It opened at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse over the weekend and will play several other Southland venues through Feb. 11.

Forget any mistaken notion that good children’s theater must by definition be inferior to good adult theater. This imaginative weaving together of comic moral tales, song and dance competes at all levels.

Visually splendid, the play was inspired by Barbara McClintock’s lushly illustrated children’s book retelling Aesop’s ancient tales. Using pen-stroke accents and delicate colors, set designer Greg Lucas and costume designer David Kay Mickelsen re-create McClintock’s Victorian-era pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings--from the painted, grapevine-hung lattice that frames the play to the magnificently rendered full-head animal masks worn by the actors.

Composer Roberta Carlson’s memorable score, recorded by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, is a knowledgeable, sophisticated tribute to 19th-Century music gracefully integrating ballet, opera, operetta and music-hall styles.

Lyrics are alternately witty, as in a paean to tails--”Whether stubby or prehensile, it’s the ultimate utensil”--and lovely, as in “Simple Pleasures at Home,” a mouse duet.

Narrator Bruce Thompson (who also plays Goat and Big Dog), supplies the only dialogue; the actors express themselves through individualized balletic movement choreographed by director Wendy Lehr. They are given delightful voice by the soundtrack’s operatic vocals, while flute, oboe, French horn and other orchestral instruments complement the idiosyncrasies of each animal character: Dog, Cat, Wolf, Lamb, Crows, Fox, Tortoise, Hare and the two mice.

Lehr and Marisha Chamberlain, who adapted the book for the stage, frame 15 fables--among them “The Fox and the Grapes,” “The Wolf and the Lamb,” “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse,” “The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”--in the context of a country fair, using the race between the Tortoise and the Hare as a continuing theme. Lehr skillfully blends the tales with flowing interaction between the characters.

Most admirably, the enchantment is not weakened by any condescension or moments that cloy, so that the intended sting exists in reminders not to trust flatterers, to give fake sorrows no sympathy, that any excuse will do for a bully, and that slow and steady wins the race.

This unusual treat offers a welcome opportunity for audiences to see children’s theater at its best.

* “Animal Fables From Aesop,” Irvine Barclay Theatre, UC Irvine: today 7 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m.; (714) 854-4646, (714) 740-2000, $10-$15. Visalia Convention Center, L.G. Williams Theatre: Thursday, 7 p.m., (209) 730-7000; $8-$16. Ventura High School Auditorium, 2155 E. Main St.: Saturday, 3 p.m., (805) 650-5900; $12-$14. Haugh Performing Arts Center, Citrus College, Glendora: Sunday, 2 p.m., (818) 963-9411; $8-$15. California Center for the Arts, Escondido: Feb. 10, 7 p.m.; Feb. 11, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., (619) 738-4100; $16-$20. Running time: 1 hour.