A busload of sophisticated high-tech urbanites finds itself stranded in a mountain town by nasty winter floods. There they find a low-tech woodland utopia of tie dye-clad dancers who are throwbacks to the 1960s and 70s.
The resulting culture clash, rife with fantasy, magic and rock and roll, explores romantic love, sibling rivalry, nature vs. nurture, partying, country life and the history of war - all in 75 minutes.
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That's "El Nino," an original play created by La Honda resident and La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District board trustee Jessica Abbe for the La Honda Elementary School's after-school drama program.
And 32 third- to fifth-grade drama students will perform it at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the school.
The story ties in with La Honda, past and present, Abbe said. By its end, the urbanites' bus has morphed into "a different kind of bus" out of 1960s La Honda lore.
"It was a great experience, to write a theater piece for a particular group of people," Abbe said.
If the "El Nino" storyline - travelers stranded in a storm - seems familiar, it's because Abbe adapted it from Shakespeare's "The Tempest." The lighthearted script features characters from Shakespeare's opus and deals in stormy, contemporary themes. This Caliban, impressionable and low in self-esteem, battles "Tempest-like" issues such as class and power struggles. In La Honda the scene is a playground, not a remote island.
"El Nino" is a family affair: Abbe's fourth-grade son Miles McLeod plays Prospero. Other major roles include Julia Simonis (fourth grade) as Miranda, Joseph Krempetz (fifth) as Caliban, Alex Jenkins (fourth) as Jeb, Shauna-Li Wolfeld (fourth) as Ariel, Anna-Lesa Sukkestad (fifth) as Ferdinand and Isabelle Pisani (fourth) as the queen.
The idea of tapping "The Tempest" came from Abbe and director Bruce Krempetz, an actor who spent 20 years with Stanford University's Lively Arts program.
For this year's play, Abbe was thinking "Alice in Wonderland" set in La Honda, but Krempetz, who had once appeared in the real "Tempest" set in America's Dust Bowl, suggested adapting it for fun and to teach children about Shakespeare.
Abbe agreed, and created a script that blended the Bard and La Honda.
That, Abbe said, meant a lot of explaining. Lines from circa-1960s classic rock songs, like "We gotta get out of this place" (the Animals) or "A typical city involved in a typical daydream" (Grateful Dead) had to be explained to a new generation of students, she said.
Still, Abbe said, creating the play was rewarding. It allowed her to flash back to her own theater roots - she earned an undergraduate degree from New York University in acting and directing, and acted in plays, including some by Shakespeare, in New York and Berkeley.
Besides, she says she enjoyed the creative license.
"That's why it's fun for me to write," she said. "It's a play, it's fiction, I don't need to be accurate."
Recently elected to the local school board, Abbe works in documentary film writing and production with husband Toby McLeod of Earth Island Institute.
Tickets to "El Nino" are $7/adults and $5/children under 12. Proceeds will benefit the La Honda Elementary PTA and "just more drama" at the school, Abbe said.
For information, call the school at 747-0051.
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