By HANK ROSENFELD Special to the Daily Press
Who among us has not been charmed by a 9-year-old song-and-dance man in his parent’s living room? OK, sometimes it can be embarrassingly lame, but darn that kid is so cute. So, you could do a lot worse than watching a sparkly-sweet group of kidlets-to-pre-tweens facing front and singing about say, Scientology. In fact, a kind of unauthorized musical deprogramming takes place throughout the production, “A Very Merry Children’s Scientology Pageant,” at Santa Monica’s Powerhouse Theater. Giggling has been known to lessen stress, which ain’t bad over the holidays. It’s how they lower the defenses, that’s where they get you. So beware a fantastical blue-green rainbow world dripping like gumdrops into the warm red, carpeted stage. Once a dreamy overture kicks in, cold and electronic as the “mysterious universe” out there.
The evening is rendered in a story theater style recalling everything from Paul Sills and friends to the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Except that our angel icon diva is 11 years-old adorable. Katie Ellis leads the mighty tiny cast of 12, singing them “flowers in bloom,” in case you wondered where they’d all gone, exhorting us to “Rejoice! Rejubilate! Celebrate!” These angels portend nothing but goodness even while telling the story of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
One set of theatrical twins chimes through their braces the song “Aloha,” irresistibly on so many levels. After all, when was the last chance you had to look straight into a performer’s orifice aperture metal thingy? Another set of siblings in white robes and Reading Rainbow socks play like daycare-kids-gone-wacko. And they’re all standouts, aside from the obvious and numinous metaphor, especially Kyle Kaplan as commander Hubbard. Nemesis Donald is channeled by Jamie Dahlke and Molly Elizabeth Matzke plays the mysterious Zenu, a way millions of years-old sacred figure. Lauren Clinton, Nikki and Jessica Haddad, and Mario and Anthony Quinonez appear as delighted local-loco energy bundles, with Chigoziri Ikeme as one brainwashed acolyte and Kristopher Barnett as a robot. Or is that another acolyte? Yes, it’s that kind of pageant play, conceivably mocking any religion with pop appeal.
Each spirited actor — some commuting from as far away as Orange County — gets paid $7 a show. And as long as they’re not running wild in the “Celebrity Showcase” parterre.
“A Very Merry Children’s Scientology Pageant” comes directly from the John Houseman Theater off-Broadway, where the New York Times found it had “a halo of hipness and daring.” Some of that seems to have faded by the time the show went West. Blame it on the smog or Santa Ana time change, but Les Frerers is a theater company who dream up and stage historical epics starring Warren G. Harding as a rock star.
At less than an hour, it’ll give you a giggle as you go. A stage picture after the 11 o’clock number brings shivers to the soul, and not just because a window is open. My companion at the Powerhouse said he once saw a Scientology talk given in the nude in Seattle. El-Ron Hubbard once “wrote a book,” he said on our way to watch the freaks at The Novel, “so heavy, that when he read it, he died.” Now I don’t know what is hip, but is that hip or what?
“A Very Merry Children’s Scientology Pageant,” held over through Dec. 15. Performances run Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m. Tickets are $25. The Powerhouse Theater is located at 3116 Second St. 1-866-633-6246. powerhousetheatre.com.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 3, 2004. Read the original PDF.