Opening act.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Twenty minutes to showtime and director Jennifer Barwood had her cast backstage in the darkened green room for relaxation exercises.

No one looked relaxed.

"Let's make a circle," Barwood said, clapping her hands. "We're not chatting now. We're breathing in through our nose. Breathe out through your mouth."

Zsofika Wigney was dancing in the middle of the room. "I have something to say," she interrupted. "I don't breathe through my mouth at all!"

Olin Barwood lay on the floor picking up bits of fairy glitter. Hannah Rogers fretted because she'd left her rabbit ears at home. Rachel Brasted-Maki seemed confused.

"Do we have to hold hands? We're not bowing now."

Jennifer Barwood plunged ahead. "Let's stretch all the way up to the ceiling. On your toes. Does that feel good?"

That was when Maya Naleid had a seizure.

This production of `The Mitten,' a folk tale staged Sunday at the Wildish Community Theater, had begun weeks before when Patricia Wigney had an idea. What would it be like, she wondered, to stage a real theatrical performance using autistic children as actors and actresses?

Wigney is founder and director of Bridgeway House, a group that helps autistic children and their families. She turned to Barwood, her running partner, who had been a theater major at the University of Oregon.

"It caught me off guard," Barwood says. "I really didn't have a clue as to what I was getting into."

Zsofika, a pretty 10-year-old with dark hair and intense eyes, walked into the second rehearsal wearing industrial ear protectors - they help her with the stress of loud noise - and carrying two sheets of paper in a plastic page cover.

One one side was her schedule for the day, broken down into 15-minute intervals. The other side said, "Things to Do if I Get Upset." They included: "Do not hit. Do not yell. Use your words calmly ...'

Zsofika, who is Wigney's daughter, wasn't using her words calmly.

"My name is not `Jessica,' ' she snapped at another girl. "You have to apologize! Don't say you're sorry. You have to say `I apologize'!'

Barwood had scheduled a 90-minute rehearsal. By the end of an hour, it had fallen completely apart, with children sulking, in tears, or hiding in corners. Barwood looked exhausted.

Improvisation provides fairy tale ending

Things had not gone much better the week before.

Annie Gould, a 9-year-old who had agreed to play Owl in Barwood's 3 1/2 -page script, decided she had to be a fairy, even though the part already had been given to Alyssa Files. After trying vainly to lay down the law, Barwood rewrote the script to have no owl and two fairies.

It would be a miracle, I thought, if these kids could manage even a curtain call.

Autism is a little understood developmental disability that gives children trouble with social interaction and communication. They may seem to lack imagination, obsess about odd things or have difficulty speaking.

No one knows the cause, but it's increasingly prevalent in the United States, now striking 1 in every 150 children. There is no known cure.

Most - but not all - of the children in `The Mitten' have been diagnosed as autistic. But they share a blizzard of other labels, too: obsessive compulsive, bipolar, fetal alcohol syndrome, depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, with severe, nonverbal isolation at one end and the social ineptness of Asperger's syndrome at the other. People in the autism world talk about being "on the spectrum."

You don't touch these kids unexpectedly, or even at all. That was hard for Barwood to get used to; theater people touch one another all the time.

Talk to the moms and dads and you realize you're in a world where all the questions you can ever think of have long since been asked and answered.

`When ...' you start to say.

`When did we notice?' a parent will reply.

`It was when she was 4. She switched her pronouns around in a funny way.'

Or, `When she was 3 she would cry for four hours because she saw a dead mouse.'

Or, `She lined up her toys in neat rows all the time. And would scream if anyone moved one.'

This is a world full of prescription pills. Antidepressants such as Zoloft and Paxil compete with lithium and anti-seizure medication in some of these children's bodies.

Some kids, as a result, puff up and gain weight. They also sleep through the night, maybe for the first time in their lives, and get a grip on their tempers.

Wigney doesn't give Zsofika any meds, which may account for her rougher edges.

No one here is judgmental about using or not using medication. Everyone knows what it's like to live with autism.

`We used to have to sit on her,' one mom confided.

I may have looked surprised.

`Any parent here will tell you, they've sat on their child sometimes to hold her down,' the mom said. `If they're being honest.'

As the weeks of rehearsal pass, the children seem both ordinary and haunting.

Maya is 15, moon faced and dreamy. She played Bear, a gentle, lumbering creature, not a bad bit of casting. Maya has a habit of coming up and pointing at you when she says hello, not in any offensive way. She smiles almost constantly. Two days before the show she sat next to me before the rehearsal started.

`Hiiiiiiii, Bob,' she said, in her slow way.

`Are you excited about performing in front of an audience?' I asked.

`What's an audience?'

Josh Emmons, 13, is quiet as Mouse. He and Rachel, who played Squirrel, had to move the large mitten - with Wigney inside - around the stage.

`Will you be nervous at the performance?'

`Yes,' he said, and paused seriously. `I was born autistic.'

Playing above their game

Performance day loomed. At the dress rehearsal, Annie stormed off stage in the middle of the show when Alyssa's mom shot a flash picture of the scene.

`Don't take my picture!' she raged, striding right up to the mom. `Don't take my picture when my crown has fallen off!'

During a rehearsal break, Hannah, calm-looking as ever, disappeared into the upper row of the theater with Zsofika. When Barwood called them to come down - now! - Hannah, who is 11, ran wildly down the theater stairs, tripped and fell.

The rehearsal ground to a halt. A Band-Aid was called for.

`But she's not bleeding,' someone said.

`It's OK,' Barwood said wearily. `I promised her a Band- Aid.'

Showtime.

In the green room minutes before Sunday's curtain, Maya was back and smiling, a little weakly, after her mom had taken her outside for air.

Barwood collected the cast and herded them onstage.

`Break a leg,' someone said.

`What?!?!?' More than one literal-minded child stumbled on that one.

`It's just an expression. Go on.'

The house was packed. Barwood took the stage and began an introduction, commenting on the hard work the young actors had done.

Zsofika's voice rang out from the wings. `Did you say actors?' she demanded. Zsofika likes to be thought of as an "actress."

Barwood ignored her.

The show went off virtually without a hitch.

Maya, perhaps still shaky from her seizure, tended to hide behind the fake Christmas tree that was the forest. Rachel, as always, kept everyone abreast of their cues. Annie made it through in good fairy form, possibly because of the `no flash photography' announcement.

They played, in a sports analogy, way above their game.

The show was sweet and funny. But was it art? This was, after all, nothing but a half-hour grade school performance.

People like to gush about "risky" art, even when the risks are utterly conventional. This was a true theater of risk. No one involved had a clue what would happen on Sunday afternoon, from the kids and their parents to the director.

"The Mitten," in that sense, was a grand piece of conceptual artistry, raising questions of identity and difference without a moment of preachiness. When Annie stormed off stage to lecture that hapless mom, she broke the fourth wall of theater more honestly than any postmodernist playwright ever has.

We are all part of the show, the moment said, no matter how much we might prefer to sit back and watch.

We are all, as they say, on the spectrum.

ON THE WEB

To see more photos, go to www.registerguard.com/mitten

Reach Bob Keefer at 338-2325 or [e-mail].