Mainstream Seems to Suit Still-Thriving Teatro Meta

Raul Moncada, director of the Old Globe Theatre’s Teatro Meta program, crossed his fingers when he was told last year that the Globe would be absorbing Teatro Meta as a department rather than continuing with it as a separately funded branch.

The fear expressed by some observers was that mainstreaming might water down the project and ultimately eliminate it.

Moncada was never one of the public naysayers, but he does acknowledge now that he was more than a little worried at the time.

“There was that time of hesitation when we didn’t know how the incorporation would work out,” he said.

Now, with the inclusion of “La Fiaca”--a 1987 Teatro Meta workshop presentation--on the 1991 winter schedule, as well as a new play by Argentine playwright Lillian Garrett (“The White Rose”), Moncada said he feels that mainstreaming is working.

His confidence in his project’s future is further bolstered by a $45,000 playwrighting grant that came in just last week from the Ford Foundation.

The money is designated to commission four first drafts from North American Latino playwrights. The Old Globe might produce those scripts, but has no obligation to do so, Moncada said.

Moncada, who translated “La Fiaca” by Argentine writer Ricardo Talesnik, as well as the Globe’s 1990 presentation of “The Granny” (another Teatro Meta discovery) by Argentine writer Roberto Cossa, will also continue to seek out new work by Latin American authors.

Moncada has traveled to Argentina, Venezuela and Uruguay in search of scripts, and is headed next to Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica on Oct. 11-31. The trip is being sponsored by Partners of the Americas, a national organization based in Washington.

The San Diego Repertory Theatre is continuing its commitment to Latino theater with its annual Teatro Sin Fronteras project. The San Diego premiere of “Man of the Flesh,” by Texas playwright Octavio Solis, will play Jan. 5 to Feb. 2 in the Lyceum Space.

“Man of the Flesh” replaces Ariel Dorfman’s “Widows.” The 20th-Century reworking of the Don Juan story will be co-directed by San Diego Rep Producing Director Sam Woodhouse and UC San Diego Professor Jorge Huerta, for both English and Spanish performances.

In the play, Juan is a womanizing young man from the barrio who gets a comeuppance from his mother on “El Dia de los Muertos,” the Mexican “Day of the Dead” when spirits travel between this world and the next.

In the English version, the all-Latino cast will be double-cast as working-class Latino actors and upper-class Anglos from La Jolla; in the Spanish version the cast will double as working-class Latinos and upper-class Mexicans from La Jolla.

The play was commissioned by the city of Dallas in 1988, originally was performed by Teatro Dallas, and received its professional world premiere at the South Coast Repertory in Orange County last May.

Solis is working on a Spanish translation that will premiere at the Rep.

When “Loot” closes Saturday at the San Diego Rep, actress Suzanne Schefke will be bidding a fond farewell to her coffin.

Schefke made her professional debut as the corpse of Mrs. McLeavy in Joe Orton’s black comedy, and for her, it has been anything but a “deadening” experience.

It may seem an odd choice for a nurse who left that profession for acting because she wanted to get out of what she calls “the illness” of nursing.

But “it’s been a wonderful experience,” said Schefke. “I lay still for long periods doing shallow breathing. And it’s carried over into my personal life. Over the last few weeks, I found myself much more able to concentrate on things.”

Schefke gets into her coffin before the audience is allowed into the Lyceum Stage area. She has to remain there for thirty minutes until the play starts and then at least another 20 to 25 minutes before Jon Matthews, who plays her son, Hal, gets the idea to hide stolen money in her coffin and hide her dead body in the closet.

At that point, she has to be emptied upside down into the wardrobe. Which was why the first question at her audition was whether she could stand on her head.

“Of course I said yes, because I really wanted to do this,” Schefke said. “But I didn’t know if I could.”

She does it, though, for just about a minute and a half until the wardrobe is closed and she can sneak out through a trap door in the wall behind.

The experience has given her a new perspective on her chosen profession.

She saw a clip from Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” Monday and the part that impressed her the most was--you guessed it--the scene in the crypt.

“I thought it was just amazing that Olivia Hussey (who played Juliet) stood still for that long. I was really impressed that I couldn’t see her breathing.”

PROGRAM NOTES: Following the model of the Bowery Theatre’s arrangement with the Kingston Hotel, NewWorks Theatre has signed an agreement with the Horton Park Plaza Hotel to create a performance space in the basement of the hotel at E Street and Fifth Avenue. Dick Nichols, general manager of the Horton Park Plaza, said work needs to be done to transform the basement into a working theater, but, “in principle, they have a home.”

NewWorks is presenting a new play, “Afterwards,” by Timothy Gerald Ash, at the Kingston Playhouse on Mondays and Tuesdays through Sept. 25. . . .

The Sunday 2 p.m. performance of “My Children! My Africa!” will be simultaneously signed in American Sign Language, preceded by a discussion of the play by interpreters at 1 p.m. Tickets for the hearing impaired will be available for $10. Meanwhile, a new production of Athol Fugard’s play is set to open tonight at the National Theatre of Great Britain in London. The production will star Fugard’s daughter Lisa and will go on to tour in Fugard’s native South Africa. . . .

Bowery Artistic Director Ralph Elias will star in the Bowery’s San Diego premiere of David Mamet’s “Speed the Plow,” along with Laura Rearwin and Paul Nolan. Los Angeles-based director Frank Dwyer will direct.

“Starlight Express,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical on roller skates, will play through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.