‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ is elementary, my dear: The old lessons still ring true

If only the real classroom could have held our attention like “Schoolhouse Rock!” We’d all have PhDs, or at least a generational spike in standardized test scores. The possibilities in those mid-’70s educational songs are what Whitney Weston hoped to tap into when she added “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” to the Greenway Court Theater’s winter schedule.

“We did ‘Butterflies of Uganda,’ which just closed,” says Weston, the theater’s co-executive director. “That’s about the child soldiers of Uganda. Before that we did ‘Bad Hurt on Cedar Street,’ about a family dealing with a mentally challenged daughter. So we thought we’d try something a little lighter, a little more fun for the holidays.”

But is “Schoolhouse Rock!” -- which, by the way, hardly ever rocked, except for the Who-like “Elementary, My Dear” -- really the stuff of light and innocence? A lot has gone down since the original animated musical segments first aired on ABC in 1973. Vietnam was winding down and, if not optimism, something other than dread greeted fare like “I’m Just a Bill.” Remember that one about how laws get made? Oh, the humanity in that dented scroll o’ papyrus! “Schoolhouse Rock!’s” tuneful teaching tools evoked shiny new roads and hopes of staunching stoic Indian men’s tears. Now when a bill comes to mind, it’s stalled congressional appropriations and contentious partisanship that pop into the public consciousness. Greenway has gone a long way to preempt our contemporary bumming. First off, the stories of math, science and American history have been transported to the realm of the imagination, as 20 “Schoolhouse Rock!” songs and characters come to a nervous teacher (Eduardo Enriquez) preparing for his first day of school. And, perhaps most important, Greenway expects Jack Sheldon, the original singer of “I’m Just a Bill,” to attend on opening night. That ought to keep the Gen Xers and late boomers’ ennui at bay -- enough, at least, for them to reconnect with the songs.

“Schoolhouse Rock!” “was a way that I learned about history, about math and about science. So it always had a special place in my heart,” adds Weston. “My favorite was ‘A Noun Is a Person, Place or Thing.’ Whenever I think of a noun, the song comes right back into my head.”

Just like some of us go right back to that sad-sack Bill. But whether it’s nostalgia or contemporary poignancy we’re tapping into remains to be seen.

-- Donnell Alexander

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SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK! LIVE

WHERE: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., L.A.

WHEN: 4 p.m. Sat., 4 and 7 p.m. Sun.

PRICE: Kids $15. Adults $20.

INFO: (323) 655-7679 Ext. 100; www.greenwayarts.org