SCR Plans an Eclectic Mix for 1996-97 Season

South Coast Repertory will offer three world premieres, commissioned from dramatists David Henry Hwang, Richard Greenberg and Donald Margulies, as part of its 1996-97 schedule of plays, announced Monday.)

The 11-play subscription series, marking SCR’s 33rd season, also will include the West Coast premiere of a coming-of-age play by Lynn Nottage, originally produced last season in New York, as well as comedies by Oscar Wilde and Pierre Marivaux and a tragedy by Arthur Miller. Four more plays will be announced.

The Mainstage season will begin Aug. 30 with “An Ideal Husband,” one of Wilde’s lesser-known 19th century works, to be staged by SCR artistic director Martin Benson. Hwang’s “Golden Child,” described by the theater as a “slyly humorous story of a Chinese family legacy” told by a young Chinese American, will have its premiere on the Mainstage in January. It is said to represent a return to “the personal subject matter” of earlier works by the dramatist, a Los Angeles native best known for “M. Butterfly.”

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The Second Stage season will begin in September with Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain,” followed in October by Margulies’ “Collected Stories.” Both plays were given staged readings in SCR’s NewSCRipt Series earlier this season.

Like Hwang’s new play, “Three Days of Rain” involves a family legacy--this one filtered through the memories of “a wayward young man, his long-suffering sister and their TV-star cousin.” Two of Greenberg’s previous plays, “The Extra Man” (1991) and “Night and Her Stars” (1994), premiered on the SCR Mainstage before going on to be produced in New York.

“Collected Stories” dramatizes the mentor-student relationship of a noted, older writer and a beginning, younger writer she takes under her wing. Margulies says it is a sequel of sorts--spiritually if not literally--to “Sight Unseen,” which premiered on the Second Stage in 1991 and went on to become a commercial hit off-Broadway in New York. Short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize, “Sight Unseen” was about painters and art.

Nottage’s “Crumbs From the Table of Joy,” opening on the Second Stage in March, unfolds in 1950 Brooklyn and tells the story of a black, up-from-the-South family involving conflicts between a follower of Father Divine and a pleasure-seeking member of the Communist Party--with the complications of interracial marriage tossed in.

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When “Joy” opened off-Broadway in June, notices were mixed. The New York Times said it was poignant though artificial. The Village Voice said, “Only a born writer would have succumbed to its misguided excesses.”

“The Triumph of Love,” Marivaux’s rueful, 18th century comedy, will be directed on the Mainstage by Mark Rucker, who has been named an artistic associate of the theater. Rucker, a Los Angeles resident who grew up in Newport Beach, has been a frequent guest director at SCR in recent years. His comic update of “The Taming of the Shrew,” a Runyonesque version of Shakespeare by way of Moliere and “The Godfather,” closed Sunday on the Mainstage after a hit run.

“Death of a Salesman,” Miller’s tragedy from 1949 about a family devastated by the American dream, will be directed on the Mainstage by Benson. “Salesman” widely is regarded as the playwright’s masterwork. This production will launch what the theater is touting as “SCR’s American Classics Series, a five-year commitment to exploring one of this country’s greatest theatrical works each season.”

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In fact, SCR has been exploring American classics with marked regularity at least since 1988: “A Streetcar Names Desire” opened the 1994-95 season, “Mornings at Seven” the 1993-94 season and “The Man Who Came to Dinner” the 1992-93 season. “The Philadelphia Story” was revived on the Mainstage the season before that and “You Can’t Take It With You” the season before that; and “The Crucible” opened the 1988-89 season.

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Subscriptions for next season will cost $98 to $382, with discounts available for seniors and students.

SCR also will offer two nonsubscription plays for the Christmas holiday: “A Christmas Carol” and “La Posada Magica.”

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SOUTH COAST REPERTORY

The 1996-97 season on the Mainstage:

* “An Ideal Husband,” by Oscar Wilde. Aug. 30-Oct. 6 (opening night: Sept. 6).

* “A Christmas Carol,” adapted by Jerry Patch from the story by Charles Dickens. Dec. 1-24, nonsubscription (opening night: Dec. 4).

* “Golden Child,” by David Henry Hwang. Jan. 3, 1997-Feb. 9 (opening night: Jan. 10).

* “The Triumph of Love,” by Pierre Marivaux. Feb. 21-March 30 (opening night: Feb. 28).

* “Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller. April 4-May 11 (opening night: April 12).

* Oct. 11-Nov. 17 and May 23-June 29, 1997: to be announced.

On the Second Stage:

* “Three Days of Rain,” by Richard Greenberg. Sept. 17-Oct. 20 (opening night: Sept. 20).

* “Collected Stories,” by Donald Margulies. Oct. 29-Dec. 1 (opening night: Nov. 1).

* “La Posada Magica,” by Octavio Solis. Dec. 6-24, nonsubscription (opening night: Dec. 8).

* “Crumbs From the Table of Joy,” by Lynn Nottage. March 11-April 13, 1997 (opening night: March 14).

* Jan. 21-Feb. 21 and April 22-May 25, 1997: to be announced.

South Coast Repertory is at 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Information: (714) 957-4033.