In for the long haul

By Mike Boehm

Nov. 3, 2002 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

In the beginning they needed everything -- and made do with almost nothing.

Today, South Coast Repertory is a nationally respected, well-funded regional theater known for giving birth to important new plays. In a bid to enhance that stature, it has spent $19 million to expand and renovate. On Tuesday, the first performance of Richard Greenberg’s new work, “The Violet Hour,” will usher in South Coast’s third and newest space, the 336-seat Julianne Argyros Stage.

The theater complex in Costa Mesa stands atop a mountain of lore that has been growing since August 1963. That’s when recent San Francisco State theater graduates David Emmes and Martin Benson drank coffee late into the night in a Long Beach restaurant and hatched a plan.

“Martin Benson and I are going to start a theater within a year from now,” Emmes wrote to one of their professors soon after their talk. “We do not believe that good theater as we understand it is in existence in our part of the state ....We propose to do something about it.”

The story unfolded in scenes that are now almost mythic: The house in Long Beach where virtually the entire company -- 14 people -- lodged during the summer of 1964, each member kicking in $5 a week so that actress-cook Martha McFarland could feed them communal meals -- usually noodle casseroles.

The inaugural production the following fall -- a minimalist “Tartuffe” that the homeless company could pack into Emmes’ avocado-colored 1960 Studebaker Lark station wagon to tour Orange County.

The first home -- a former used boating equipment store near the Newport Beach waterfront that the fledgling theater acquired from Emmes’ stepfather, who let them have it in exchange for their sweat. Before they could convert it into a 75-seat theater, the gang of scrawny artists had to haul tons of Samuel Emmes’ secondhand marine gear to a nearby warehouse.

Here’s what happened next, in the words of some of those who lived it.

Emmes: “We were full of fervor and zeal, as only recent graduates can be.”

Benson: “And Red Mountain wine. Dollar fifty-one a gallon. We’d get the vin rose.”

Ron Boussom, actor: “It was virgin territory, and we had an awareness about ourselves, a sense of purpose: We were going to bring theater to Orange County. We were a very tight-knit family, and we had a cause we believed in with an absolute passion.”

By the fifth season, 1968-69, the zeal had worn off. Money was so scarce that Benson and Emmes programmed a couple of musicals -- “The Threepenny Opera” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” -- just to generate cash. Both shows were flops.

Benson: “We sold out, and we didn’t get that much for it. We sold out cheap.”

Emmes: “After having it blow up in our face twice, I think we kind of realized, ‘Better stick to your guns.’ ”

A desire to push boundaries

South Coast was learning how far it could go in challenging audiences. Its leaders at first envisioned avant-garde theater as an important part of their mission, along with classics and new American plays. But by 1970, productions of offbeat works such as Brecht’s “Baal,” Sam Shepard’s “La Turista” and Edward Bond’s “Saved” (with its infamous scene of thugs urinating on a baby in its carriage, then stoning it to death) had alienated many playgoers and contributors.

Buddy Ebsen of “The Beverly Hillbillies” had been an early benefactor of SCR but parted ways over “Saved.” Benson and Emmes had to learn an artistic balancing act -- how to be adventurous and creative, yet not leave the audience behind.

It’s an ongoing struggle -- witness the droves of walkouts that greeted SCR’s 2000 world premiere of Howard Korder’s “The Hollow Lands,” a sprawling epic that cast America’s westward expansion as a rapacious, racist enterprise undertaken by murderers, drunks and megalomaniacs.

Ebsen, recalling “Saved”: “They opened their pants and at that point I took my son, Dusty, and said, ‘We’re leaving.’ Other people left, too. I thought it was an unfortunate choice of material.”

Emmes: “During our early years we alienated a good cross section of the community. We do plays today that still offend people, but we can’t get so far ahead of an audience that they can’t follow. Then we’re not serving them and we’re not serving ourselves.”

Henry T. Segerstrom, an arts patron, after whom SCR has named its largest stage: “Once in a while I feel challenged, but that’s healthy. We don’t want a limp dishrag.”

Robert Cohen, UC Irvine drama professor since 1965: “They’re not the grittiest theater in town. I don’t expect to see European avant-garde there, but this is not in any way a complaint. New-play repertoire is probably the most important and dangerous area for an American theater, and theirs is terrific.”

Emmes and Benson learned to cultivate patrons and raise money, and by 1979, South Coast was a major regional company running plays on two stages. It soon began to nurture playwrights.

Jerry Patch, SCR dramaturge: “David and Martin made a decision that we would try to make our name with new work; that if we were going to be a force in American theater, we would do it with relationships with writers that endure over time.”

John Glore, former SCR literary manager: “Commissioning was not done much back then. People tended to think of commissions as projects -- an idea they would think of themselves and go out and find a writer to do that work. South Coast said, ‘No, commissions are not about a specific project, they’re an investment in the writer, a faith in the writer’s ability to create something worthwhile.’ ”

Donald Margulies, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright: “I wrote a play to fulfill that first commission that just wasn’t working. They could have said, ‘OK, nice working with you.’ But they were delighted to let me try again. They created a non-pressured environment where I felt confident enough to just go for it.”

Richard Greenberg, playwright and Pulitzer finalist: “There’s the right proportion of interfering and letting alone. There really isn’t any butting in for the sake of ego. They trust you and let you do your work.”

Emmes: “We try to do things in a Socratic way, asking questions -- ‘Why this? We don’t understand that’ -- without trying to prescribe what the fix should be. Because we know that the fixes we have in the backs of our minds are pretty pedestrian compared to what the playwright comes up with. If you pose the question properly and the playwright is able to find the answer, it’s going to be exciting.”

Amy Freed, playwright and Pulitzer finalist: “Once, David called me and said he’d gone scuba diving and had new inspiration about a scene in ‘The Beard of Avon’ that we’d been arguing comfortably about for months and months. I said, ‘Oh no, not underwater inspiration.’ But you want to know that somebody is caring deeply enough to take it on vacation.”

David Chambers, frequent director at SCR: “The managing director of Yale Repertory said, ‘Your friends out in California strike me as a little naive. They want a very low percentage from future productions [of Korder’s SCR-spawned “Search and Destroy”].’ I said, ‘They’re not naive. They’re truly supporting the writer and not taking their pound of flesh.’ ”

Tim Sanford, artistic director of Playwrights Horizons in New York: “When it comes to new work, they’re probably one of the five most important theaters in the country. Writers want to work there. It’s a prestigious gig.”

Benson: “The ultimate god in our theater is the playwright.”

Nurturing in-house talent

While casting a wide net for acting talent, South Coast, in an unusual arrangement, stayed tied to its roots by guaranteeing six months’ annual salary to six “founding artist” actors who were linchpins of the troupe from its earliest days -- even though the theater’s growth and the actors’ advancing age mean they often play supporting roles instead of leads (two of the six are no longer with the company).

Over the years, SCR audiences have seen Dennis Franz (“NYPD Blues”), Ed Harris, Tom Hulce (“Amadeus”), Toni Tennille and Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”) and his wife Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle”) before most of the film- and TV-watching public knew who they were. Marquee names who have played at South Coast after they were anointed on screen include Jean Stapleton, Elizabeth McGovern and Joe Spano.

Hal Landon Jr., founding artist: “I had to admit, painful as it was, that I wasn’t really as good as some of those people they were bringing in. For about four years, I worked intensively to learn some real formal skills, which made a huge difference. I started getting good parts again.”

Martha McFarland, founding artist: “It’s a matter of David and Martin being incredibly loyal. They have reaped rewards from this theater emotionally and artistically and financially, and they didn’t want to forget the people that helped them.”

Chambers: “Joel Grey called me and said, ‘I’d love to play Astrov in “Uncle Vanya.” ’ I brought it up to David Emmes, and David’s reaction was not, ‘Great, let’s go for it,’ but, ‘Do you really think he’d be a good Astrov?’ ”

Lee Shallat-Chemel, former SCR staff director: “Anthony Hopkins wanted to do ‘Hamlet’ down here [in the late 1970s]. But he wanted to bring in his own director and some people to be in the cast. I was jumping up and down, saying, ‘Do it! Do it!’ But they were very wary of big-name people coming in and sort of taking artistic control.”

Emmes: “We’re not interested in running a star system. The minute you start down the road of celebrity, that’s a very dangerous path for a theater like ours.”

Benson and Emmes say their partnership has thrived because of tastes that match, and talents that differ.

Benson: “We’ve never had any major disagreements about where we wanted the theater to go. And each of us gravitates toward and has talents in areas that did not compete with the other. David early on showed a gift for planning and looking further down the road than I did. It has stood us in wonderful stead over the years.”

Glore: “David and Martin never made me feel as if they were my boss and I was answering to them. It was a very collaborative, very collegial environment. And they walk in tandem so easily you never felt you were caught between the two guys who run the theater.”

Don Took, founding artist: “David is an intellectual. He covers all the cerebral areas. He can lay out a scene, tell you how he wants to see it go. Martin is instinctive. He doesn’t quite have it all worked out in advance and lets an actor find his own way. That’s one reason they balance each other so well. It’s like the heart and the brain.”

Happy to stick close to home

While the leaders of neighboring regional theaters, such as La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego’s Globe Theatres, have taken shows from their home stages to Broadway, Benson and Emmes stay home -- the only exceptions were Benson’s trips to Seattle and Houston in 1999 to direct the SCR-originated Pulitzer Prize winner “Wit.”

Glore: “They could have made more money on some of the plays that started there and went on to great success, if they had been a little more proactive. I guess they are kind of homebodies. It means they really are paying attention to their own audience and trying to do world-class work, not because they want the world to notice, but so Costa Mesa can have it.”

Emmes: “We live in a beautiful part of the world, and we have the resources to do virtually any play that either of us wants to direct. Why go live out of a suitcase?”

Patch: “Directing in New York would have helped them if they were going after self-aggrandizement. Has not doing it hurt the theater? No. Has it cost them personally? Yes, I think.”

Benson: “I suppose you’re supposed to be ambitious that way, but our ambitions have been tied here to our own community. I have enormous ego satisfaction at the success of South Coast Rep.”

Will South Coast score a critical and box-office hit with its new play on its new stage? SCR insiders believe they already know the answer -- based on the past week’s precipitation readings for the Town Center district of Costa Mesa.

Nike Doukas, regular SCR actress: “They always say that if it rains during tech week, that’s a good sign. I don’t know why. It’s like an urban legend.”

Boussom: “Any time a production has been a success, it rained during tech week. That’s proven itself with very few exceptions.”

McFarland: “We will accept anything. One drop will be fine. Mist, a heavy fog, and we’ll be happy. I think Martin started it, but we all jumped on the bandwagon fairly quickly.”

Glore: “I think if a duck spit on you from the roof, that would count.”

The retooled and enlarged South Coast Repertory has the 507-seat Segerstrom Stage and the new Argyros Stage for regular productions. The former Second Stage, since 1979 a cozy, 161-seat home to many of the company’s most adventurous plays, is now the Nicholas Studio, a 95-seater reserved for educational programs and that South Coast hallmark, new play development. A chunk of the money from South Coast’s ongoing $50-million fund-raising campaign -- which has netted $42.2 million to date -- will bolster the theater’s endowment and launch an initiative to commission and produce new works aimed at kids and parents. Before they exit, Benson, 65, and Emmes, 63, hope to mint a new generation of Orange County theater lovers.

Benson: “We have the tools now. It’s a complex that meets all our needs.”

Emmes: “In the next five years, SCR is going to write the most exciting chapter in its history, and we fully intend to be here for that.”

Build a theater and you build a place for stories. They can unfold on either side of the footlights. This one is told by a fifth-grade teacher from La Habra who has been a volunteer usher at South Coast Repertory since 1990.

Jenifer MacLowry: “One dear man would bring his elderly mother. He was always so gentle and solicitous of her, helping her, taking his time with her and always being patient and staying with her. Each year she got more and more frail, and one time he came and the seat was empty. And then I heard this other couple come and say how sorry they were that his mother had died. And now he comes here by himself. There are so many stories I wonder about. I think there’s a play right there. And then there’s another play when the lights go out.”

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SCR as a launching pad

Some notable playwrights and plays that premiered at South Coast Repertory:

Margaret Edson, “Wit” (1995). Pulitzer Prize winner, 1999.

Richard Greenberg, “Three Days of Rain” (1997). Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1998.

Amy Freed, “Freedomland” (1997). Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1998.

David Henry Hwang, “Golden Child” (1997).

Craig Lucas, “Prelude to a Kiss” (1988).

Donald Margulies, “Collected Stories” (1996). Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1997.

Jose Rivera, “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot” (2000). Obie Award winner, 2001.

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The stages