Tour brings fables to Freud Playhouse

Tour brings fables to Freud Playhouse

Children’s Theatre Company presents classic tales with
alternative twists

By Jeanna Blackman

"The moral of the story is …"

These words are familiar to young and old alike as the ending to
many of Aesop’s Fables.

This Saturday, the Children’s Theatre Company will present its
own version of these famous tales in its ninth national tour
production, "Animal Fables from Aesop" at UCLA’s Freud
Playhouse.

The play, adapted by Marisha Chamberlain from a children’s book
that gives the production its title, weaves a collection of Aesop’s
tales together through narration, song, mime and dance.

Why was this play so special?

"Major fantasy is always attractive," director Wendy Lehr says.
The illustrations in Barbara McClintock’s book provided just enough
fantasy that was needed to turn the book into a full length
production.

"There is a feeling of theatricalism (in the book)," Lehr says.
"There was movement in the illustrations."

But that doesn’t mean the piece just fell into place.

Lehr says the challenge was "finding a way to make (the book)
dramatically viable.

"The book was an inspiration, but we had to make a drama," Lehr
says. For this, Lehr turned to Chamberlain, who had always wanted
to work with Lehr.

"Each of the fables has its own little drama," Chamberlain says.
The problem arose in trying to connect all of the little
dramas.

To solve this discrepancy, Chamberlain and Lehr went to
collections of Aesop’s other than McClintock’s book and picked out
all of the fables that involved a select group of animals. But
sometimes they needed to make a slight change

"We would make the wolf and the goat, the wolf and the lamb,"
Chamberlain says. This was done because of other tales they could
use involving a lamb. "We tried to stay faithful to the spirit (of
Aesop)."

"Our choice of characters was made according to dramatic
conflict, matching an animal with its nemesis," Lehr says.

"We tried to discern a character contradiction. For example we
asked ourselves what’s the one situation in which a wolf would not
be fierce," Chamberlain says. In this way, they worked to create a
complete dramatic throughline using the different animals.

But finding the fables was only the first challenge for the
director and the adapter.

The fact that this was a children’s production meant special
consideration in the dialogue that is used. Chamberlain deals with
a possible vocabulary miscommunication.

"I love to challenge children by giving them words that they
will understand only in context, to widen their vocabulary," she
says.

But, for Chamberlain, there is something grander involved beyond
just the fantasy, the wit or even the morals of each story.

"I find it really inspiring that Aesop handed down beautiful
tales … that really reach us where we feel enslaved or bullied,"
she says. That might explain why these tales continue to speak to
all generations.

STAGE: "Animal Fables from Aesop." Performances Saturday, Jan.
28th only. Shows at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. UCLA’s Freud Playhouse. TIX:
$9 with a valid student I.D. Available at CTO and all Ticketmaster
outlets. For more info call (310) 825-2101.