Theater Preview

Tom Titus

Theatergoers will have one less venue to fit into their play-viewing

schedule as the calendar turns, but the other five showplaces in our area

promise intriguing and, for the most part, heretofore unseen attractions.

New Year’s Eve marked the final performance at the Theater District, a

reprise of the oft-produced “Light Sensitive,” and prospects for Mario

and Joan Lescot’s high-quality operation are clouded at best. There may,

however, be another theater group in the vacated space in the Lab

Anti-Mall on Bristol Street -- if it can manage the rental fee, which

forced the Lescots to call it quits.

South Coast Repertory has a pair of world premieres waiting in the wings.

Howard Korder’s “The Hollow Lands” opens Jan. 14, while “References to

Salvador Dali Make Me Hot” by Jose Rivera will bow in Jan. 28.

Korder -- whose “Search and Destroy” opened the 1990s at SCR and won the

Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best new play -- turns from

contemporary Hollywood to 19th-century America with “The Hollow Lands.”

The play focuses on an immigrant’s journey across the country and the

unique characters he encounters.

“Salvador Dali” is a contemporary drama set in the steaming desert

atmosphere of Barstow, Calif. The story centers on a soldier’s wife whose

surreal fantasies help her cope with her husband’s frequent absences.

Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” arrives at the Newport Theater

Arts Center on Jan. 28, the only familiar play on the early-2000

schedule. One of the playwright’s most intense dramas, it concerns an

Italian family who takes in a pair of illegal immigrant relatives and the

passions their presence arouses.

The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, which is observing its 35th season, will

be back in action Feb. 10 with “Coastal Disturbances” by Tina Howe,

author of the locally viewed plays “Painting Churches” and “Museum.” The

seriocomedy involves four generations of vacationers on a Massachusetts

beach.

David Mamet -- the brilliant contemporary playwright who created

“Glengarry Glen Ross,” “American Buffalo” and “Sexual Perversity in

Chicago” -- will be represented at Orange Coast College Feb. 16 when the

school’s Repertory Theater Company presents “I Think, Therefore I Mamet.”

The production will include a wide selection of short plays by the

prolific author.

In the coming months, these local theaters will be offering such old

favorites as “All My Sons,” “The Heiress,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Last of

the Red Hot Lovers” and “Gypsy,” as well as some less-familiar works like

“The Education of Randy Newman,” “The Beginning of August” and “Tainted

Justice.”

Where the Theater District will relocate -- or what group will fill its

vacated venue -- remains a matter of conjecture. But rest assured, there

will be an abundance of theater for the entertainment of local audiences.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews appear

Thursdays and Saturdays.