SCR to open Argyros Stage with ‘Violet Hour’

Tom Titus

The long wait is coming to an end. South Coast Repertory followers

-- who have been patiently awaiting the unveiling of SCR’s newest

theatrical venue, the Julianne Argyros Stage, through its summer-long

construction process -- will finally see the new showplace up close

and personal next weekend.

And what could be a more fitting inaugural than the latest world

premiere from one of SCR’s favorite contemporary playwrights?

Over the years, Richard Greenberg has been commissioned by South

Coast Rep to create half a dozen plays for the Costa Mesa stage --

“The Extra Man” (1991), “Night and Her Stars” (1994), “Three Days of

Rain” (1997), “Hurrah at Last” (1998) and “Everett Beekin” (2000).

The latest, “The Violet Hour,” will open the Argyros Stage to the

public.

When the playwright heard that the new theater was to be built, he

asked that it open with a new play of his. Given Greenberg’s track

record at SCR, it wasn’t a hard decision for artistic directors David

Emmes and Martin Benson.

Greenberg’s “The Dazzle” was the last play to be produced on what

was formerly known as the Second Stage last spring. He also adapted

“The Triumph of Love” for a production at SCR.

In “The Violet Hour,” Greenberg recreates the early 20th century

-- 1919, to be exact -- when a novice Manhattan book publisher fresh

from Princeton and World War I is searching his cluttered office for

his evening theater tickets. He also faces a decision: He must choose

between two manuscripts for publication, one a massive tome written

by his best friend, the other an autobiography of his lover.

Before he steps into a Broadway-bound cab that night, a lifetime

of love and personal and career decisions may already have passed --

or just begun. Such is the nature of the prolific Greenberg’s prose.

Greenberg’s latest SCR project, his eighth, ranks him as the

most-produced living playwright at South Coast Repertory, and as the

third all-time produced, beating out Moliere, Tennessee Williams,

Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter. Only Shakespeare and Shaw have seen

more action than Greenberg on the SCR stage in its 37 years, and

Greenberg didn’t connect with the Costa Mesa theater until 1991.

Not that his plays are created exclusively for SCR. Greenberg, a

New Yorker, is enjoying great success with his new play, “Take Me

Out,” one of off-Broadway’s hottest tickets. It concerns a gay

baseball star who comes out. The play opened this summer in London to

strong reviews from a British press largely ignorant of baseball.

His New York leanings are apparently even stronger than Woody

Allen’s. Hollywood has beckoned the playwright many times, only to be

rebuffed. Greenberg won’t live anywhere but New York (although he

holes up in Costa Mesa’s Marriott Suites when in town for an SCR

project).

The director of “The Violet Hour” is quite familiar with

Greenberg’s unique style of writing. Evan Yionoulis also staged the

playwright’s world premieres of “Everett Beekin” and “Three Days of

Rain” for SCR. She’s also directed Greenberg’s plays “The American

Plan and “The Author’s Voice.”

While the current production of “Major Barbara” on the theater’s

remodeled Segerstrom Stage features four actors who have been with

the company since the mid-1960s -- Richard Doyle, Martha McFarland,

Don Took and Hal Landon Jr. -- the cast of “The Violet Hour” consists

of five performers making their SCR debuts.

Hamish Linklater portrays the harried publisher, Curtis Mark

Williams is the best friend, Michelle Hurd enacts the publisher’s

lover, Kate Arrington is Williams’ fiancee and Mario Cantone is

Linklater’s obsequious assistant.

With a brand-new theater, a brand-new play and a cast of actors

all unfamiliar to SCR audiences, “The Violet Hour” represents the

inaugural of a new era at South Coast Repertory.

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His reviews appear Thursdays and Saturdays.