An April shower of local theater

TOM TITUS

Think we had a plethora of local stage productions in March? Well,

there are eight more waiting in the wings in April, only they’re

spaced judiciously apart rather than opening all in a bunch, as

seemed to be the case last month.

Opening tonight is the provocatively titled latest in a series of

world premieres at South Coast Repertory from the playwright who has

provided the theater with six such events in the past. It’s “A Naked

Girl on the Appian Way” from the prolific pen of Richard Greenberg.

It’s a modern comedy is set on Long Island, rather than in Rome,

but the Eternal City figures prominently in the plot. Mark Rucker is

directing the show, which will play through May 8 on the Segerstrom

Stage.

Neil Simon’s works can be found in most seasons of community and

collegiate theater, but his “Biloxi Blues” is seldom produced (too

many men, perhaps). The Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse will rectify that

oversight this weekend when its production of the 1940s

basic-training memoir opens for a four-weekend engagement.

A 1985 best play Tony Award winner, “Biloxi Blues” is the second

of Simon’s trilogy of autobiographical plays that appeared on

Broadway and the big screen. Set in 1943, this wry comedy follows the

continuing story of Simon’s alter ego, a young Jew from Brooklyn

named Eugene Jerome, who enlists in the Army toward the end of World

War II.

Also on stage -- or rather under the setting sun -- this weekend

only is Orange Coast College’s outdoor production of Moliere’s

“Tartuffe.” The show runs through Sunday in the college’s

amphitheater, with curtain at 6:30 tonight and Saturday and 2 p.m.

Sunday as a project of the school’s repertory theater company. Pray

for an absence of rain.

Next weekend brings two more Costa Mesa openings, with Stephen

Sondheim’s musical “Into the Woods” bowing in at Vanguard University

and Orange Coast College countering with Marsha Norman’s hefty drama

“‘Night, Mother.”

Amick Bryam, who directed Vanguard’s impressive production of

“Brigadoon” last season, is at the helm for the Sondheim show, which

tosses an assortment of fairy tale characters together in a

confrontation that promises to be both funny and poignant. It’s on

the Vanguard boards for two weekends.

“‘Night, Mother” will be presented by the OCC Repertory Theater

Company in the college’s Studio Theater, also for two weekends. This

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner focuses on a mother and

daughter’s last night together and is recommended for mature

audiences.

UC Irvine has “Venus” by Suzan-Lori Parks on stage April 14

through 16 only in the university’s Studio Theater. This satiric

drama, based on actual events, recalls the life and death of the

“Hottentot Venus,” a 19th century African woman who was paraded

across the globe as part of a grotesque sideshow, then experimented

upon by doctors.

Arriving at UCI the following weekend will be “Timon,” an updated

version of Shakespeare’s “Timon of Athens,” under the direction of

Robert Cohen. The Bard’s wildest and most experimental play -- a

grandly satirical parable of luxurious excess, corrupted friendships

and political betrayal -- will be staged in contemporary times at

UCI’s Winifred Smith Hall for two weekends.

Finally, on the last weekend of the month, South Coast Repertory

will be back in action with yet another world premiere, “Vesuvius” by

Lucinda Coxon. This drama, directed by South Coast co-founder David

Emmes, is set at a resort near Naples, where a man and woman recall

loved ones lost and lost ones found, learning to accept life’s joys

and perils. The show plays through May 15.

It’s a true April shower of theater, a month of seldom-seen (or,

in the case of South Coast Repertory, never-seen) plays calculated to

whet the appetite of the habitual playgoer.

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

appear Fridays.