STAGE NOTES : Even Panned ‘King’ Should Do Royally at the Center

Can Rudolf Nureyev learn to sing and act by December, when he arrives with “The King and I” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center? To judge from the early reviews in Boston, don’t expect it.

The Boston Globe called his performance “lamespoken” and worthy of “rotten fruit.” Even the kinder reviews were lacerating. The Boston Herald regretted having to report a lengthy catalogue of transgressions, not least that he projects an “intense grouchiness” instead of the royal anger patented by Yul Brynner.

Will it hurt attendance at the Center if Nureyev can’t sing and act? Not likely. Recent patronage has been so good, regardless of the offerings, that management might consider replacing the building’s glass doors with funnels.

The Center has had 25 sellout shows in a row: eight for “Cats” (Sept. 5-10), nine for the Kirov Ballet (Aug. 18-27) and eight for “Fiddler on the Roof” (Aug. 8-13). The wall-to-wall business for “Cats,” which has been to the Center twice before, set a one-week house record for Broadway musicals: $804,439. It topped “Fiddler’s” short-lived record of $767,715.

“That,” said Center President Thomas F. Kendrick, “is clearly a spectacular summer.”

STAR TALK: Douglas Rowe, who has taken a working sabbatical from his job as artistic director of the Laguna Playhouse, is making the most of it. “I’m so busy with my own acting it’s unbelievable,” he said this week of two recent roles in TV movies.

In the first, “Incident at Dark River,” Rowe plays a biochemist pressured to stay away from the case of a young girl whose death has been linked to industrial pollution. Mike Farrell stars as the girl’s father. The air date is Dec. 4 on the Turner cable network.

The second movie, “Incident in Lincoln Bluff,” has Rowe playing one of Walter Matthau’s cronies.

The time is World War II. The place is a prisoner-of-war camp in Colorado. Matthau is defending a German POW wrongly accused of murder. Rowe uncovers key evidence that points to the real killers.

“It’s Matthau’s first TV film in decades,” he said. “So there will be a major ‘do’ over that one.” The movie, which also has Barnard Hughes, Peter Firth, Harry Morgan and Susan Blakely, is to air on CBS in January.

CHIN UP: Rowe’s leave of absence from the community playhouse’s Moulton Theatre started out having less to do with his acting than with trying to implement his plan for a second Playhouse theater at the General Telephone Building in downtown Laguna Beach.

Unfortunately, the expected purchase of the building, where Rowe wants to stage original plays with professional actors, has been stalled for more than six months because of water contamination beneath the building.

“If a second theater does not happen, I’m going to retire,” Rowe said. “I’m not interested in continuing unless we get that second venue. We’ve proven, as a staff, that we are more than ready to be dealing with professional actors and new material.”

Meanwhile, the lack of movement in solving the contamination problem is making the GTE building purchase “look less and less like a done deal,” Rowe said.

READY OR NOT: Word from the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim is that it has booked “Hair” (Jan. 12-14) and “Oh Calcutta!” (Feb. 18). Presumably, the bookings have been secured. The last time the Celebrity announced a musical--Ken Hill’s version of “The Phantom of the Opera”--it failed to sign the show but kept selling advance tickets anyway. The sales were halted only after a threat of legal action by the “Phantom” producers.

NEWSCRIPT SERIES: South Coast Repertory has announced the first two titles in its Monday night series of five NewSCRipt play readings: Anthony Clarvoe’s “Pick Up the Ax” (Oct. 9), “a buddy story set in the highly competitive computer business,” and Donald Margulies’ “Heartbreaker” (Nov. 13), “scenes from the erotic life” of a young man who is coming of age.

SCR has also received a $95,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest in the Costa Mesa theater’s 26-year history and $25,000 more than last year’s award. It is to be used for general operating expenses. The theater had applied for $150,000. But producing artistic director David Emmes said this week he is pleased with the award, nonetheless. “Given the tight constraints of the NEA, getting any increase was quite an exception,” he said.