He’s Had the Time of His Life : After 58 years at San Diego’s Old Globe, Craig Noel contemplates retirement as he directs his 219th play.

They’ve been together 58 years, surviving a world war, two destructive fires and battling the current California recession. Craig Noel, an aspiring actor, was a 20-year-old camera-rental clerk in 1935, when the California Pacific International Exposition was held in San Diego’s Balboa Park. He slipped away from his job to catch the Shakespeare mini-plays performed at the new theater, a replica of Shakespeare’s Old Globe. It was love at first sight. Now the Globe is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and Noel, its executive producer, is turning 80 and contemplating retirement.

He made his acting debut at the theater in 1937, became the Globe’s permanent director three years later and, in 1949, established the world-renowned summer Shakespeare festival. Over time, he has directed 218 productions, 17 of which were world premieres (he’s produced 270 additional shows at the Globe). The Globe has developed into a Tony Award-winning three-theater complex with a budget of $8.5 million and one of the largest subscription audiences in the country (40,000).

A conversation with Craig Noel is filled with history, theatrics, anecdotes and opinions. He is energetic, impish and quick to laugh. He is modest, but he engineered many Old Globe firsts.

In 1974, he established the Globe Educational Tour, which has brought works of world literature to more than 400,000 students from San Diego to Los Angeles. That same year he established the Globe’s Play Discovery Program to bring in scripts from new playwrights. In 1983, he launched the Old Globe’s bilingual theater program, Teatro Meta. In 1987, he established a two-year Master of Fine Arts/Professional Actor Training Program in conjunction with the University of San Diego. In honor of his 50-year association with the Old Globe, then-San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor proclaimed 1987 as “The Year of Craig Noel.”

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But this year, he’s a little less celebrational, a little more somber. “We’ve lost a great deal. 1994 was by far the most terrifying year ever. It started with the death of Bill Eaton (Noel’s best friend and the Globe’s longtime spokesman and resident historian, who died of cancer), and it went all downhill from there.” A student in the Globe’s MFA program was shot to death in the park. The Globe’s production stage manager, Douglas Pagliotti, died of AIDS, and so did Will Roberson, a respected San Diego director and Globe protege.

“There’s the feeling that the park is not safe, there are parking problems, there’s the aging of the audience. . . . We continue to struggle to invigorate and find new avenues to solicit attendance. And the economy has not been good. We lost a lot of financial support. We didn’t have a very successful year. The Globe did break even. I think we had a net profit of $287.”

Noel grew up in San Diego, and he hasn’t ventured very far from home. But he was once seduced by Hollywood. In 1941, he became an apprentice director at 20th Century Fox (“The Army wouldn’t take me, because I was so skinny.”). He directed the first screen-tests of Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters (“It was three minutes of motion picture directing; I was hooked.”). But by 1944, the Air Force was willing to send him to the Philippines. After the Japanese surrender, he was assigned to Special Services, Tokyo, where he became director of the huge Ernie Pyle Theatre.

When he returned in 1947, Noel directed the Globe’s first postwar production, William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life.” This spring, he’ll direct his 219th play, Alan Ayckbourn’s “Time of My Life.”

Noel introduced Ayckbourn to San Diego audiences. He also brought in Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Anouilh, Brendan Behan, Christopher Fry, Jean Giraudoux. But for a while, he thought the well was dry.

“There were 10 years--the Vietnam years--when all the new works were angry, mean, brutal plays with angry, mean, brutal language. But they were not good plays. They were pamphlets.”

The Globe has usually avoided politically hot properties. The theater has been known more for high-quality productions than cutting-edge choices.

This anniversary season features three West Coast premieres--Ayckbourn’s “Time of My Life,” “Full Gallop” by Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson and “Puddin ‘n Pete” by Cheryl L. West, whose “Jar the Floor” was a Globe hit last year--as well as two classics, “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Hedda Gabler.” The award-winning “Dancing at Lughnasa,” this year’s offering by Brian Friel, is likely a safer bet than his “Wonderful Tennessee,” directed by Noel last year, which gained critical favor but not audience support.

After the Ayckbourn play, Noel plans to direct one summer production and then he may retire. He named his successor in 1981, artistic director Jack O’Brien, who had worked at APA Repertory in New York, a protege of directors Ellis Rabb and John Houseman.

“Craig built this theater on mutual trust and true respect for the material,” says O’Brien. “He’s the bellwether for selecting a season. The Farmer’s Almanac of Theatre. And he’s almost always right. Also, he’s one of the handful of best directors I know. My commitment to him at this point is to give him whatever he wants to direct. . . . He doesn’t like to work on pieces that hanker after death. He prefers plays that support an essentially positive vision, not a nihilistic or cynical one. . . . I have a different appetite. I was raised on big events. Craig started with a far more modest appetite.”

O’Brien’s appetite has taken him to New York (currently, his production of “Damn Yankees,” which originated at the Globe, is a hit on Broadway--reopening on Feb. 28 with Jerry Lewis--and his sold-out production of Tom Stoppard’s “Hapgood” is at Lincoln Center through Feb. 19). “I just took Craig’s model and spread it on a wider canvas. He’s ambitious for the theater, not for himself. It sounds saintly, but it’s true. He’s got a very strong ego, though. He’s a very competitive, feisty, tenacious fighter. I suggest you don’t go up against him.”

The same may be said for O’Brien, normally expansive and amiable, who is angered by complaints of stodginess at the Globe. “I’m tired of the Globe being portrayed by the press as this gray lady in the park. They don’t acknowledge our new plays, the young actors we’ve developed, our multicultural programs.”

That may be true. Bill Virchis, artistic producing director of San Diego’s Teatro Mascara Magica, says that “the Globe was the first regional theater to embrace a culture besides its own. (Virchis was co-founder, with Jorge Huerta, of the Globe’s Teatro Meta program.) And Craig was the first man to talk about hands across the border. . . . He’s been the Johnny Appleseed of theater. His legacy will live on. He’s an angel to this community.”

D ouglas Jacobs, artistic director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre, would agree. “There are very few cities where theaters are as cooperative as San Diego. A lot of that spirit goes back to Craig. He set the tone years ago. He appreciated the value of multiculturalism and brought an openness, a lightness, a brightness of spirit to the cooperation of theaters and to his own work.”

Noel’s influence extends well beyond San Diego. “He’s a living legend in American theater,” according to Los Angeles-based Lillian Garrett-Groag, who has served as actor, writer and director at the Globe. “But he’s not a relic to be revered. He has the incredible capacity of changing, growing, being open to new things. He’s one of the few people in the theater who love (the theater) for itself, not for professional advantage. There are no personal agendas. I don’t know anybody else I could say that about.”

Noel may step down, but he doesn’t plan to stop. “I’d like to spend more time with the MFA program. And I’m working on a project putting three small theaters in the Gaslamp Quarter. But I told the Globe, ‘If some director leaves you in the lurch, or is too drunk to stand up, I’ll fill in.’ Anyway, after two months at home, I’ll probably want to come in and sweep the floors and make coffee. This theater has been my life.”*