Bats might not seem like ideal animals to tell a uplighting story of personal perseverance and religious intolerance.

Silverwing, the first in a trilogy of popular fantasy books written by Island-born author Kenneth Oppel – Sunwing and Firewing the others – changed that.

For Victoria actor Amanda Lisman, the idea of playing a young bat in Kaleidoscope Theatre’s current stage adaptation of the series – she most recently played the lead role in Pride and Prejudice – offered a chance to expand her range.

“The story of a bat seemed like an intriguing challenge; to bring animals to life on the stage,” said the graduate of the University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre.

“I think that’s what I really like about working in the theatre, is the variety of challenges that you get as an actor. One day you can be playing Elizabeth Bennett in Regency period England and using lots of semi-colons, and then go to wings flapping and playing a child bat.”

Lisman, who plays Marina, is one of 34 cast members in Silverwing, the tale of Shade Silverwing (played by Timothy Johnston), who breaks an age-old promise between bats and owls and looks at the sun.

In doing so he sets off a chain of events that leads to his separation from the colony during the great migration, after which he meets Marina, another cast-off.

Kaleidoscope artistic director Leslie Bland said using a large cast – the Vancouver production had just eight – allows for more of an epic quality to the play.

“When you see them head off for the great migration,” said Bland, “you’ll basically see the whole colony flying off together, instead of eight actors playing interchanging parts. This lets us expand some scenes to their full potential.”

Some of the other themes of the play and subsequent books are religion, as tying the belief of being banded (human-placed radio transmitters) to Nocturna, the god of bats.

Marina is banded and is subsequently cast away by her colony to fend for herself.

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Lisman said these underlying themes give this children’s fantasy story serious wings – no pun intended.

“There’s a theme of the importance of belief, and religion and identity, there’s some pretty strong serious adult themes in the show and I think different people will have different responses to it,” she said. “Ideas about religious intolerance and abuse of power and who you are and how you relate to your religious beliefs. So there’s all sorts of interesting themes so I think it’s a story that a young child will enjoy for very different reasons than an adult will enjoy.”

Lisman, who next spring will play Roxanne opposite Colm Feore’s (*Trudeau* and *Bon Cop Bad Cop*) Cyrano de Bergerac at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, joined fellow cast members in working with choreographer Phoebe Rumsey on acting more like a bat – as much as a human can do.

She also read Oppel’s books and studied videos of bats. She even has a picture of an eastern red bat, which her character is modelled after. “You can’t come to the theatre and expect realistic portrayals of bats,” she said. “They have more human elements to them, which is what I think makes the play interesting too.”

*Silverwing* opens tonight at the McPherson Playhouse and runs until Friday, Dec. 14. There will be 12 performances in total, including six school matinee performances. For tickets and showtimes, call 250-386-6121 or go to the McPherson box office, #3 Centennial Sq.

patrickb@vicnews.com