SCR to Offer ‘Russian Teacher’--Soviet Comedy With Dark Twist

South Coast Repertory will offer a staged reading of Alexander Buravsky’s “The Russian Teacher,” a contemporary Soviet comedy adapted by Keith Reddin, as the first 1990 offering in its continuing NewSCRipt series, theater officials announced Tuesday.

The Jan 22. reading on the Mainstage will be directed by SCR’s David Emmes, who first saw the play among a handful he scouted in Moscow and in the Georgian city of Tbilisi on a trip to the Soviet Union last April.

Although little known outside his country, Buravsky has had five plays produced there since the institution of sweeping social reforms by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, according to SCR dramaturge Jerry Patch.

The play is described in SCR’s forthcoming January newsletter as reminiscent of comedies by Kaufman and Hart or Larry Shue, “but with a dark twist” and political implications. It revolves around a teacher who goes to a resort for his vacation and finds himself in the orthopedic section of a hospital that is thrown into chaos by an impending inspection.

Buravsky, 35, will be on hand for the SCR rehearsals. Another Buravsky play, “Liberty: Year Two,” was given a staged reading Dec. 20 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Reddin, who was commissioned to adapt “The Russian Teacher” from a literal translation by Elena Muravina, has had three world premieres of his own politically charged plays during the mid-’80s at SCR: “Rum and Coke,” “Life and Limb” and “Highest Standard of Living.”

SCR also presented a 1988 NewSCRipt reading of Reddin’s “Peacekeeper,” about life in a nuclear-missile silo at a strategic air base. The play, retitled “Nebraska,” had its premiere in 1989 at the La Jolla Playhouse.

The decision not to give “Peacekeeper” a full production at SCR subsequently led to harsh criticism of the theater’s leadership by Reddin. But his adaptation of the Buravsky play apparently represents the healing of any rift.

According to Patch, who is quoted in the SCR newsletter, Reddin was asked to do the adaptation because Emmes, who directed “Highest Standard,” felt “Reddin’s political acumen was vital. . . . Underneath the comedy, this is a contemporary political play.”

Not coincidentally, Ron Boussom will read the title role of “The Russian Teacher.” He previously played a Russian visiting a hospital in “Highest Standard,” which the newsletter describes as having grown out of Reddin’s studies in the Soviet Union.

The next two NewSCRipt readings--to be held March 26 and May 14--will be chosen from the 300-plus scripts that have been submitted to SCR’s 1990 California Playwrights Competition. The theater plans to announce the winners Jan. 31.

Meanwhile, SCR expects to complete negotiations this week for adding “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” to the troupe’s appearance at the Singapore International Arts Festival in June.

“We’re in the final stages of pinning that down,” Emmes said in a recent interview.

The two-character play by Terrence McNally, seen earlier this season on the SCR Second Stage, would join last season’s Mainstage production of Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell.” Karen Hensel and Richard Doyle, who starred in “Frankie and Johnny,” would repeat their roles.

The foreign tour will be the 25-year-old theater company’s first. Emmes said plans call for the Singapore government and a Singapore corporation to finance 60% of the direct costs, budgeted at $120,000. The other 40% will be raised in this country through public grants and private contributions, he said.

An entourage of 23 people is to leave for Singapore on May 27. “You Never Can Tell” will be presented five times from June 1 through 8 at Singapore’s 900-seat Victoria Theatre; “Frankie and Johnny” will be presented three times at the 250-seat Drama Centre.

SCR will also give master classes for local Singapore troupes, and company member John-David Keller will extend his stay to direct a “Room Service”--a frequently revived Broadway farce of the ‘30s--for a Singapore theater.

Emmes said an attempt to book performances of “You Never Can Tell” in Japan and Hong Kong did not pan out. SCR’s travel agent, however, is coordinating an extended tour of the Far East that will arrive in Singapore for the show’s premiere.

“We’ve asked them to develop a trip so members of our board--or our audience, for that matter--can come see us while traveling in that part of the world,” Emmes said.