A Tried-and-True ‘Beyond the Fringe’ . . . and That Goes Double for Stephen Spender

Some things never die. They just grow in popularity.

The Old Globe production of “Beyond the Fringe,” a 26-year-old lampoon that became a record-breaking hit in San Diego this summer, will be coming to the Los Angeles Theatre Center for a limited engagement starting Nov. 18.

The four-character British satirical revue was written by and served to launch the careers of Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore back in 1960. It’s directed by Paxton Whitehead, who replaced Miller in 1963 in the original Broadway version and stayed with it through its close in May, 1964.

It seemed fair to ask if the edition coming to the Theatre Center a full 22 years later would be updated?

“Well, no,” Whitehead said Tuesday from San Diego. “not as such. It would be sort of specious to throw in Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. People would see it for what it was.”

Hmmm. Does the satire hold up?

“We found (in San Diego) that it did. Very much. People think of ‘Fringe’ as a topical revue. In 1960 I think there were three sketches out of 22 that were topical. We will simply de-emphasize what was topical then. The issue of test bans and nuclear disarmament unfortunately have remained the same.”

Performing with Whitehead (he directs and acts in it) is the balance of the original Old Globe company: Tom Lacy, Jerry Pavlon and Jim Piddock. With a little encouragement, “Fringe” could stick around to usher in the new year.

Following the sellout at the center of the “$6.30 at 6:30” performance of “Tartuffe” Oct. 22 (which was a trial balloon), the management has decided that all shows in the new season will get at least one such $6.30 performance at 6:30 in the course of a run. “Fringe” will have a $6.30 at 6:30 p.m. preview Nov. 13. The Grand Lobby Bar will open at 5:30 p.m. with a no-host wine and cheese table and a variety of other potables.

“The actors love it,” said a theater official.

So, apparently, does the audience. At the “Tartuffe” 6:30 performance, the center sold 41 subscriptions (at $90 each) “right off the bat.” Seventy percent of the people who responded to the theater’s informal survey had never been to the Theatre Center before, 43% worked downtown and 78% said they’d consider subscribing.

AT LATC AND BEYOND: British poet Sir Stephen Spender read from his work Monday at LATC, and reminisced about the later Bloomsbury years and some of his own illustrious literary contemporaries (among them Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot).

Spender (who at 79 has outwritten and outlived most of his contemporaries) was made an instant celebrity in his youth when his good friend Isherwood characterized him in his novel, “The Memorial,” well before he attained literary fame in his own right.

If you’re sorry you missed the reading (and by now you should be), you might try catching up with it tonight at 8 at UCLA’s Sunset Canyon Recreation Center, (213) 825-3701, or Tuesday, 8 p.m., at Elkins Auditorium on the Pepperdine University campus in Malibu, (213) 456-4225.

DOWN THE PIKE: With “The Shrew” well ensconced on its Sarah Cunningham stage (which will officially be dedicated to the late actress at the end of the season), events for Ensemble Studio Theatre’s year are lining up. They include: Nov. 23, Julie Harris giving a fund-raising performance of her “Currier Bell, Esq.”; Dec. 1-13, “Ensemblefest,” a marathon program of plays and playlets initiated by company members; Feb. 12, Clifford Odets’ tale of how Hollywood studios put the squeeze on contract players, “The Big Knife,” directed by Scott Reiniger.

On March 19, “Final Passage,” Roger Schenkkan’s play about one of the spookiest events in nautical history, the sinking of the San Cristobal off the coast of Nova Scotia with crew and passengers caught as if in mid-sentence, will have its Los Angeles premiere.

The Ensemble Studio’s May slot is as yet unfilled, and the season will end with another marathon of original material written and performed by company members.

HAUNTED THEATAH: The invitation reads: “To solve this case, you’ll have to party with a murderer and a demon.” Could this be dinner with the Macbeths?

Not to worry. The invite is only for Murder Mysteries Inc.’s latest escapade, “Sherlock Holmes in Murder at the Masquerade,” a 1930s Halloween party aboard the SS Princess Louise, Berth 94 in San Pedro, Friday and Saturday. Dinner, dancing, wine and a post-party costume contest will go along with guests’ efforts to help Supersleuth solve the staged whodunit. The game is afoot, as Holmes would say, 7:30 p.m., (213) 595-5903.

MORE HALLOWEEN: Have fun and do good at the same time by attending a grand costume ball hosted Friday by Angela Lansbury and Virginia Capers in the Grand Lobby of the Pantages Theater. Proceeds from the grand event will go toward the creation of the Edna Earle Theatre Center, Hollywood’s first black performing arts center.

At Friday’s ball, there will be music, dancing and entertainment provided by Hinton Battle and Millicent Martin and the song and dance team of Crescendo and Diamond. For time and tax-deductible ticket information, call the Lafayette Players at (213) 622-7701.