Stage

Beginning the new year with a backward glance, South Coast Repertory, the county’s largest professional theater company, Friday began previews of Noel Coward’s high comedy of low manners, “Private Lives,” which premiered in London in 1930.

If that is not sufficiently nostalgic or rear guard, Thornton Wilder’s 1938 homage to rural America circa 1901, “Our Town,” will follow Feb. 13 on the SCR Mainstage.

In fact, revivals will dominate not only SCR’s schedule in the coming months but also that of the county’s major theatrical importer, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which offers national touring productions of Broadway musicals. “big,” a huge flop on Broadway in 1996 but now rewritten and re-choreographed, arrives at the center Feb. 10; then comes the evergreen “Annie” (April 29).

Of course, “Private Lives” has much to recommend it, not least Coward’s irreverent treatment of the age-old carpe diem theme. To quote Elyot (the playwright’s alter ego), who romps with Amanda (the play’s femme fatale): “Come and kiss me, darling, before your body rots and worms pop in and out of your eye sockets.”

As for “Our Town,” even Mary McCarthy, who was no fan of Wilder’s plays, regarded it with grudging admiration. For once, she conceded, his “perennial nostalgia” had found “a pure and lyrical expression.”

That leaves the Laguna Playhouse, the county’s second-largest theater company, as the only one of the big three to ring in the new year with a new work: Bernard Baldan’s comedy about middle-aged men caught up in midlife changes, “The Boise Club,” which begins previews Tuesday.

“It’s about two guys who’ve been best friends all of their lives yet are unable to share their problems,” playhouse Executive Director Richard Stein says. “One of them has the bright idea of creating a venue where men like them can reveal their innermost feelings.” (And no, the title is not intended as a pun on the Boys’ Club.)

SCR won’t put on a new play until Richard Greenberg’s “Hurrah at Last,” about a fractious family, in May--unless Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy “The Birds” is considered a new work because of a new adaptation by SCR Literary Manager John Glore in collaboration with Latino comedy troupe Culture Clash. It opens Jan. 23.

The three other upcoming SCR revivals--Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” on the Mainstage (in April), David Mamet’s “Oleanna” on the Second Stage (in March) and Joe Orton’s “What the Butler Saw” (in April) also on the Second Stage-- seem like old news.

“Arcadia” was done last season in an elaborate production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; “Oleanna” and “What the Butler Saw” have been done just about everywhere.

Of the musicals coming to the center this summer--”Chicago” and “Footloose” (in July), “Rent” (in August)--the first is the most notable. If the road version is anything like the current Broadway revival, “Chicago” will sizzle.

“Footloose,” based on the movie with Kevin Bacon, is unpredictable. The long-awaited “Rent,” already old news, will be older still by the time it gets to the center. But center programmers figure that’s not likely to deter “Rent” fans. The show has been booked for two weeks, rather than the customary one.

Other notable upcoming productions:

* “Inside Out,” an off-Broadway musical (in March) and Neil Simon’s “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” (in May), both at the Laguna Playhouse. Stein and Laguna Artistic Director Andrew Barnicle have picked offbeat musical winners before (“Company” last season and “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” earlier this season); “Laughter” has more funny lines than any Simon comedy, bar none.

* “An Evening With Langston and Martin,” starring Hollywood actor Danny Glover in a rare stage appearance (Feb. 27), at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Glover brings passion and warmth to Langston Hughes’ poems about the African-American experience, while co-star Felix Justice gives a compelling performance as Martin Luther King Jr. (They got rave reviews several years ago in Fullerton with the same show.)

* “Cirque Eloize” (April 8-11) at the Irvine Barclay. “Cirque Eloize,” ideally suited to the theater’s intimate space, offers charm as well as electrifying circus artistry.