‘Search and Destroy’ Opens ‘90s at SCR

Director David Chambers isn’t reserved about his new production opening Friday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa. “This is the first play of the ‘90s,” he announced. “Not only one of the first to open, but very now. “

The play is Howard Korder’s “Search and Destroy.” Chambers dubbed it “an epic excursion through fear, corruption, greed and big rewards.” It’s set in Miami, Dallas, Minneapolis and New York (“though you can’t distinguish one from the other; they’re just places on a map”) and follows the moral travels of Martin Mirkheim, played by Mark Harelik.

“He’s on a journey to find a life of deeds, not things,” Chambers said. “One of the characters he meets is Kim--played by Philip Anglim--the Mephistopheles of the play. Also in the story are assorted American types and archetypes including businessmen, ex-wives, virginal secretaries with slasher-movie fantasies, a television charlatan and brothers-in-law with money to lend.”

Chambers, a self-confessed “New York person” who balances his associate artist position at SCR with an assistant professorship at Yale School of Drama, admitted the piece has its roots in social anger--but denied the “cynic” rap laid on Korder when his “Boys’ Life” ran last summer at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

“I hope this play comes from a proven place rather than a jaded one,” he said. “It doesn’t just skim the surface. This has a larger point of view; it comes from a deeper place. It’s more painful, more epic. It has passion . . . and compassion.”

SHEPARD AT THE SKYLIGHT: “It’s like an Abbott & Costello relationship,” said Gary Grossman of his role in Sam Shepard’s offbeat comedy, “Geography of a Horse Dreamer” (1974), opening Saturday at the Skylight Theatre in Hollywood.

“The two of us have hijacked this cowboy, taken him from the great plains of Wyoming. Now we’ve gotten him in a seedy hotel room, handcuffed to the bed”--where the cowboy is supposed to flex his psychic powers and “dream” horse race winners.

“We went to the race track to study this thing--and won about $400,” he added. “Now I’m meeting with jockeys, because my character used to be one.”

The actor, who likens his Santee to Jack Nicholson’s Joker in “Batman,” admits that menace was part of the attraction. “I’ve never played a gangster before,” said Grossman, who’s a teacher on “The Wonder Years” series. “It’s a real challenge to play someone off-the-wall, dangerous, who’d turn on you in a second--and still make him lovable.”

IT’S YIDDISH TO ME: The new English-Yiddish musical revue, “Those Were the Days,” will have its local premiere Jan. 23 at the Westwood Playhouse. Bruce Adler, Eleanor Reissa, Mina Vern, Norma Atkins and Joanne Borts star in a revue of over-30 songs, taken from the music of the East- European shtetls (villages) to contemporary Broadway fare. A Klezmer band will accompany the singers, who’ll help out non-Yiddish speakers by inserting English dialogue and verses in the music.

THEATER BUZZ: Horton Foote (“Tender Mercies”) is among the writers represented in Theatre 40’s new one-act festival, opening Monday in Beverly Hills. In Series A: Steve Shilo-Felson’s “The Wedge,” Sam Ingraffia’s “Chateau Rene” and Meg Griffith’s “A Delightful Dinner with Delores Duhamel.” In Series B: Martin Epstein’s “Mysteries of the Bridal Night,” Foote’s “The One-Armed Man,” and Giovanna & Charles Knox Robinson’s “Clandestine at the Crystal.”

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: Richard Dresser’s corporate comedy “The Downside” is currently playing at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Said Dan Sullivan in The Times: “(It) will make you think of ‘Working Girl’ and ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.’ But it also may suggest Ibsen’s ‘Enemy of the People,’ with its skeptical view of what men and women really are once their self-interest is threatened.”

From the Pasadena Star-News’ Frances Baum Nicholson: “(The play) is interesting, but it is not light comedy. Its language is harsh and often crude, and its premise and atmosphere as disquieting as they are funny. Expect to come away smiling, but disturbed.”

Wrote Ed Kaugman in the Hollywood Reporter: “ ‘The Downside’ can best be described as a crowd- pleaser, with lots of laughs at the expense of the crazies who influence us. . . . It’s an entertaining (if predictable) evening, made especially so by the deft direction of Kenneth Frankel and a first-rate onstage ensemble of actors.”