‘Morocco’ Added to SCR’s New Season Lineup

Allan Havis’ “Morocco,” which made its debut in New York earlier this summer, will have its West Coast premiere at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa this fall. SCR officials penciled in the play Thursday as the second offering of the upcoming season on the Second Stage, where it will run from Nov. 11 to Dec. 11.

Described by New York Times reviewer Mel Gussow as “an absorbing cat-and-mouse game in which one cannot always distinguish the cat from the mouse,” Havis’ three-character drama will follow the previously announced “In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe” by Eric Overmyer (opening the Second Stage season on Sept. 23).

Gussow wrote in his review of “Morocco” at the off-Broadway WPA Theater in July that the play has overtones of Pinter and Hitchcock. The plot revolves around a Jewish-American architect on business in Morocco whose wife is suddenly arrested and accused of prostitution, drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

SCR producing artistic director David Emmes will direct. Havis directed the play in its New York outing. SCR presented his “Haut Gout” last September, also on the Second Stage. It too had an exotic setting--Haiti--and concerned an idealistic American doctor who runs into trouble there.

The 36-year-old playwright, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, has written several plays, among them “Mink Sonata” and “Hospitality.” Havis said by telephone from New York that he currently is at work on another, commissioned by SCR, called “Ladies of Fisher Cove.”

Havis said he will move to San Diego where he has accepted a two-year appointment at UC San Diego as an assistant professor of play writing.

The remainder of the previously announced Second Stage season includes Lanford Wilson’s “Talley’s Folly,” opening Jan. 27, Christopher Durang’s “Laughing Wild,” opening March 17, and the California Play Festival, beginning May 5.