Eerie 'Coraline' celebrates a little girl's pluck

NEW YORK — Coraline Jones is an inquisitive, adventurous child with serious abandonment issues. But then if your parents suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, you, too, would be feeling more than a little apprehensive.

It's that feeling of nightmarish uncertainty that pulses through "Coraline," an eerie, imaginative little musical by David Greenspan and composer-singer Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields fame. The MCC Theater production, having its world premiere at off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel Theatre, is based on Neil Gaiman's popular children's book that had a stop-motion animated film incarnation earlier this year.

The stage adaptation by Greenspan, who also appears in the show, is remarkably faithful to Gaiman's creepy tale. Yet it has been theatrically redefined by director Leigh Silverman and an inventive production team that manages to provide an environment verging on the delightfully decrepit. Even the Lortel, a gloomy, slightly threadbare theater, seems to be the perfect venue for the unsettling story of Coraline's search for her missing parents.

And Merritt has provided an oddly appealing score, full of strange sounds and tinkling, ethereal melodies. Tinkling because one of the instruments used is a toy piano that underlines the childlike but never childish songs that Merritt has composed for the show. These wispy numbers should make for an intriguing cast recording.

The search for the absent mother and father involves going through a door in the forbidding house in which Coraline lives. The girl stumbles into a whole other dimension, a sinisterly distorted version of her more normal, if boring life. It's in this peculiar universe that Coraline meets her Other Mother and Other Father, fearsome, possessive replicas of her real parents.

These strange folks _ they have unnerving black button eyes _ promise Coraline an idyllic family life, much better than the one provided by her workaholic, less family-oriented real parents.

Quite a temptation, but one our intrepid young explorer rejects as she bravely sets out on her rescue expedition. Along the way, Coraline encounters some odd creatures including an all-knowing, self-sufficient cat (is there any other kind?), two elderly theater actresses reliving their past glory, the ringmaster of a rat circus and the souls of children long ago discarded by the Other Mother.

Silverman has cast the show with adults, starting with the title character, portrayed by the wide-eyed, ever-expressive Jayne Houdyshell. The actress projects the right amount of innocence and stubbornness a determined little girl would display in a battle to outwit the forces of evil.

That evil is personified by the Other Mother, played in drag by the extravagantly theatrical Greenspan. The actor, deploying a soothing, singsong voice, is done up as a demented homemaker, sporting those sinister button eyes, coifed in stringy black hair and wearing a full bright red apron.

The show's five other performers _ Julian Fleisher, Francis Jue, January LaVoy, Elliot Villar and William Youmans _ portray everyone else. All are excellent quick-change artists.

But then "Coraline" is a celebration of resourcefulness: Coraline's ability to surmount and triumph over the scary unknown. Her agility makes for unique, fascinating entertainment.