2 Founders of SCR Find That to Play Is the Thing

You’ve seen it in the movies or perhaps on the stage. Two friends kick around an idea for a play. They have no money, no sets, no idea where to do all this. What they do have is too much love for the task to ever consider quitting. In the end (especially in the movie version) they become raging successes.

There you have David Emmes and Martin Benson. Except they didn’t want just a play. Their dreams came in bunches. They wanted to build their own theater. They’d had the idea ever since they met backstage as bit-part actors while attending San Francisco State.

Their first production office was the back of Emmes’ station wagon. Their first actual theater, in Newport Beach, was so primitive that actors who entered from stage left had to crawl through a window into the building. Benson laughs that when theater patrons there used the single bathroom facility, “if they’d opened the medicine cabinet they would have found my toothbrush and razor.”

Emmes and Benson have been at it now, as equal partners and best friends, for 32 years. Their theater still has its original name: South Coast Repertory.

SCR, whose permanent home is in Costa Mesa, in the shadows of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, has two stages, a staff of 65 and a national reputation that’s the envy of regional theaters everywhere. Two weeks ago, it picked up 11 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, almost lapping the field.

“We’re living the true Horatio Alger story right here in Orange County,” Emmes says. “We’ve proven that you don’t have to work in 11 square blocks of New York City to have good theater.”

What intrigued me, after meeting them, was that their working relationship is as strong as ever. They still eat lunch together every day, usually at Table Number Seven at the nearby El Torito Grill. Titles don’t really mean much to them--Emmes is basically the chief operating officer, and Benson the artistic director. But those roles are interchangeable. When one goes into production on a play, the other picks up the rest of the work to be done.

Their bond is those 32 years of growth. Each knows the other is the only one who can understand what it took for SCR to make it.

“We reached the point of death with this thing many times,” Emmes recalls. “But those times when it looked like we’d have to fold the tents, we’d say to each other, ‘We might as well go down in flames.’ And we’d always come out of it.”

Adds Benson: “The word ‘play’ means many things, but one of them is, it means to play. We’ve been at play all these years. It’s not like baseball: The legs don’t go. So, we’re still playing.”

Pre-Wright Brothers: The Learning Channel, if you have it on your cable TV at all, is the one most of us flip past on our way to CNN or HBO. But veteran Orange County photographer Lee Payne says there’s good reason to watch tonight.

The Learning Channel is showing the first two of six hours on lighter-than-air flights. “This is the other side of aviation, before the Wright brothers,” Payne says.

The documentary is based on Payne’s book, considered a classic in the field, called “Lighter Than Air: An Illustrated History of the Airship.” Payne served as a consultant for the series.

“It’s not easy finding footage of many of those early craft,” Payne says. “But these people have done an incredible job. They even tracked down a great-grandnephew of Ferdinand Zeppelin (the German pioneer in lighter-than-air travel) who had in his possession some rare early film.”

TV Guide shows the program’s first two hours at 5 and 8 tonight.

The Big Ache: The pain of watching the California Angels lose their opener at the Big A on Tuesday night was deepened at the snack bar.

Coffee and hot chocolate are $1.25, Ocean Spray juices $2.75. Regular soda is $2.25. Hot dogs are $2.50, Kosher dogs $3. You can also get about two bits’ worth of cotton candy for $2.50. Youngsters can get an Angel Youth Meal for $3.75--a hot dog, potato chips, a cookie and juice.

Family First: You just know that Greg Oberst of Seal Beach is going to be a good dad.

Oberst, a firefighter and paramedic, has a passion for off-road vehicles. He’s good, too. He was among the winners in the national competition for what’s called the U.S. Camel Trophy Team. It’s a combination of driving, camping, map and compass reading--all that outdoor stuff that Oberst loves.

That honor sent him to Spain recently for the international semifinals. If he won there, he’d make the two-man U.S. team for the finals in Indonesia. And he was winning in Spain. His Indonesian spot was sewn up. But instead, after one day, he quit.

A few weeks earlier, Oberst’s wife, Penelope, had given birth to Makenna Emily, their first child. He had left for Spain with his wife’s blessing, and encouragement.

“I thought I could handle everything, being away from her and the baby,” Oberst says. “But I couldn’t. I was eaten up with guilt. I knew I was doing well enough to make Indonesia. I realized that would just be too much time away from them.”

Those Indonesia finals are going on this week. Oberst’s thoughts are with the U.S. team. But his heart is in Seal Beach, with his family, where he’s sure he belongs.

Wrap-Up: Before playwright David Henry Hwang became an international star with “M. Butterfly,” he was a new face commissioned by South Coast Repertory.

“That’s one of the joys of our work, getting a chance to support new talent when they need it,” Emmes says.

It’s paying off, too. Hwang never forgot his commission; he just had to put it on hold for a few years. He fulfills his obligation with the premiere of his newest play, “Golden Child,” scheduled for SCR’s main stage in January.

Emmes and Benson are so excited about it they’re convinced that “Golden Child” will be in production worldwide for years. They’re putting 32 years of knowledge into that prediction.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.