Integrity

My very part-time, hourly gig doing some basic gathering, organizing and disseminating of information for HSU Department of Theatre, Film & Dance productions, limits what I can write about HSU shows in the Stage Matters column I write for the North Coast Journal, which is also a very part-time gig, paying a flat per column rate, with no benefits or expenses.

I was hired for both gigs at roughly the same time, and both parties knew of the other possibilities before I was hired, and both knew and approved of my commitment to not review HSU shows in my column.

Out of some 32 columns, I wrote something substantial about HSU shows in four, with this basic disclosure. Conflict of interest is a complex issue, and there are many factors involved, particularly in terms of ordinary practice here in Humboldt. I’ve been writing and editing professionally for about 35 years, and my integrity has always been important to me. I’ve made some substantial sacrifices based on principle, and in general I believe my past supports my ethical commitment. I understand the difficulties and I certainly feel the awkwardness of this situation, but basically, my conscience is clear. As conflict of interest is also a matter of appearances, I leave those judgments of what the Journal publishes to its editors.

But I do face the dilemma of a different sort of conflict as theatre columnist: between the appearance of a conflict of interest, and my responsibilities in covering North Coast theatre. To put it simply, no column that purports to cover North Coast theatre can possibly ignore HSU theatre. In terms of quality, of its unique contribution in the plays and the theatre it does, and its place in the theatre and general community, it must be part of the mix, just as Dell’Arte is, or North Coast Rep or Ferndale Rep. I want to be fair to all, and that means being fair to HSU as well.

But in the past year or so, I discovered that if I did not write about HSU theatre, then nothing about these productions appeared in the Journal. That’s a disservice to Journal readers as well as to all the people involved in HSU theatre and dance. It’s especially missed since the Journal lives in Arcata, and so does HSU.

Recently I took this concern to my editors at the Journal, and received their assurances that they will make an effort to ensure that somebody covers HSU theatre in its pages. So I don't have to write about it in the Journal, and that particular conflict issue won't pertain.

My writing about North Coast theatre is still incomplete without writing about HSU. (Plus they do plays there, and plays are what I like writing about best. There are only so many ways I can describe juggling or evaluate somersaults.) So I will continue to write about HSU shows here in my online space. I am master here, and I know my interest in plays and performance, writers and actors, etc. far outweigh my supposed financial self-interest based on a review.

I initially posted a much longer discussion of conflict of interest issues, and many more details about myself. But upon reflection, I decided to simply make this statement and move on.

CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS are giving two benefit performances on Saturday, March 24 at 2 PM and 8 PM at the Arcata Dancenter. Proceeds support local performers going to Mexico and other countries. Rudi Galindo sent along these photos.

Photos from my Ashland trip

outside Ashland early a.m. BK photo

From my first visit in 2006:

Building on Ashland’s early 20th century success with Chautauqua circuit performances, OSF grew in fits and starts since 1935 to become one of the major regional theatres in North America. In three superbly designed theatres (by Richard L. Hay, who still designs shows in them), OSF produces 11 plays—contemporary as well as Shakespeare and other classics--over its 8-and-a-half month season. It sells some 380,000 tickets for 776 performances, employing about a hundred performers, and 450 others. Its yearly mission, in the words of resident actor-teacher David Eric Thompson, is to “tell 11 stories with as much passion and energy and technical bravura as we can.”

 So today the industry of Ashland is theatre, and not just at OSF. On my visit, Wendy Wasserstein’s American Daughter was at the Camelot Theatre Company, Oregon Cabaret Theatre was doing Tick, Tick, Boom! (a musical by Rent author Jonathan Larsen) and Southern Oregon University was mounting Ibsen’s Ghosts, to be followed by A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  Ashland Children’s Theatre was preparing its annual Incredible Theatre Camp.

 Shops, restaurants, white-water rafting—there’s plenty more to do, but it all revolves around OSF. The Festival offers theatre tours (many in our group had taken one before), talks, related concerts and other events. A visitor’s center has vintage costumes on display, and a gift store features theatrical masks and Oscar Wilde action figures. OSF proves that in the TV and movie age, people are still fascinated with live theatre.

 Theatre in Ashland fulfills many hopes, and demolishes many excuses. It’s not New York or any large city, or even near one. Yet people travel hundreds of miles to see Shakespeare done with high artistry, clarity and style. Other classics and contemporary plays are likewise performed to fully engaged and responsive audiences of young and old, who typically see two plays a day, with actors as well as audiences as fully committed in matinees as in evening performances. It can be done, and the proof is living.

Good place for breakfast: the Wild Goose Cafe.

Kids lining up at the Bowmer Theatre.

The next day--spring!

heading home

On the North Coast

This Weekend..

Dell' Arte first year students present their annual program of Melodrama this weekend, Thursday through Saturday, March 15-17 at the Carlo Theatre in Blue Lake. Six student-written and acted 15 minute plays "explore moral dilemmas, neurosis, obsession and the struggle against repressive forces. "

Here is my preview of last year's show, which discusses the concept and practice of melodrama.

$7 general and $5 for students/seniors. The Thursday performance is "pay what you can. "For mature audiences. Reservations: 707-668-5663 Ext. 20. Visit www.dellarte.com for more information.

Live Blogging from Ashland

Season Preview

We're in Ashland--actually, a motel on the fringe of Ashland, right next to the Rogue River National Forest--to see some plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw Tom Stoppard's On the Razzle last night--and it's likely to be one of the hits of this, Libby Appel's last season as artistic director. Today it's As You Like It for the matinee, and The Cherry Orchard tonight. Am I dreaming? Not likely, since I got almost no sleep last night. But after the Shasta Breakfast at the Wild Goose Cafe, I'm great. For now. These plays may look like a dream as the day goes on.

All the plays except the one we'll see Saturday before returning will play through the summer, so it may be awhile before I write about them in the Stage Matters column. We're already talking about when we'll return, to catch several of the plays that start later, especially August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean --which will be the first of his plays I've seen anywhere but Pittsburgh, several times with him in attendance. And then the big productions in the outdoor summer theatre, which is an experience I haven't had yet.

Again, even this early in the season, what's great about this other than the high quality of the productions is the audience. Last night was weighted towards high school students in groups on one end, and gray-haired couples at the other, with a decent sized minority of folks in between. But the audiences are alive. Right now, here in the motel lobby/breakfast nook, there are several h.s. students and their teacher, here for plays. I have yet to see the smirks and slouches of the cynical and unwilling, though some of the conversations indicate that at least some of these kids participate in theatre in their schools. I caught a bit of several last night talking excitedly about the stage set, and how the entrances and exits were managed. This is always how it gets passed on. The future of theatre in the seats.

Next trip we hope to see some other theatre here. There's one advertising: Men On Skates: The Wisconsin Ice Fisherman's Musical. Which could be a case of a title too funny for the play to live up to. If it's here when we come back, maybe we'll see.

By the way if you're wondering, the Journal doesn't pay a cent of my expenses, for this or any other trip.

The TV Stage

Harold Pinter on Charlie Rose

The TV Stage

Pinter and Misha on Charlie Rose

On the Charlie Rose Show site, you can see his interviews broadcast Thursday and Friday with playwright and 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate Harold Pinter, and legendary dancer Mikhail Baryishnikov. The Pinter interview contains some of Charlie at his worst--taking it upon himself to defend the honor of the U.S. against Pinter's analysis of war and imperialism, and not only badgering him but giving us way more Charlie than we need in what is likely to be one of the last lengthy TV interviews Pinter will do. Still, Pinter didn't lose his composure or seem offended--he even seemed to be enjoying himself-- so maybe their relationship made this an expected encounter. The rest of the program is quite good but I still could have done with more Pinter, more theatre talk and less hectoring from CR.

Pinter provided a few peeks into how he approaches the process of writing and doing theatre. David Mamet says that Pinter and Beckett brought poetry back to the theatre, but Pinter said he valued producing exciting theatre. In responding to questions about his tremendous influence on writing for the stage, he talked about the writers who excited and influenced him. He could see their singular visions, but not his own; writing is doing. "The only thing I can really say about my work," he told Charlie," is that it makes me laugh." His tactic is to get a laugh, and then shut it up.

The interview was done in December, as Pinter finished his run starring in his friend Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. There was no video from that performance, but I hope it was recorded. Not only is it likely to be a superior performance with great insight into the play, but Pinter's last stage appearance. At age 76 and weakened by cancer, he said several times that he's written his last play, though he still writes poetry. For all his dour themes and politics, he seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed his writing life, not only his more than two dozen plays but his nearly two dozen screenplays.

As for his politics, he recalls the experience of being bombed and seeing the effects of bombing during the London Blitz more than 65 years ago, when bombs were much less powerful than now. "I understood what bombing is, what bombs do," which, he said, leaders don't comprehend or won't face: the death, mutilation and destruction that results from political gestures.

The Baryishnikov interview was often the opposite of Pinter's--much more Misha than Charlie, and quite easy and good. He seems like a terrific person--very generous in his comments on others, philosophical about his own choices, but honest, and very articulate. He always struck me as a singularly civilized man. He talked about more or less backing into the movies--his first role, in The Turning Point, was supposed to involve just dancing, but bits of dialogue were added on the set, then more, then more, and he became a major character. But what he remembers is watching Shirley McLaine and Ann Bancroft act. Charlie showed a dance from another film, White Nights, with Gregory Hines. Hines was a great dancer, and kept up very well with Misha, but there were differences--Hines used his arms a lot more, which may have been style, but it also seemed that Misha didn't need to--he moved so economically, with no wasted motion, and perfect control.

He also talked about seeing every kind of movement as dance, and remembering how people move, even if he can't remember their faces or names. There were a few moments of him dancing now, at the age of 59. Despite 11 surgeries, he still has that grace and economy and perfect control. An inspiration, to be sure.

On the North Coast

The Weekend Review

A rave review of Cloud 9 at HSU by Meghan Vogel in the Times-Standard... A feature by Wendy Butler in the Eureka Reporter on the Dell'Arte MFA students project working with the Eureka Adult School’s Traumatic Brain Injury class to create and present a theatre piece called Snap! Laura Provost previews the Ferndale Rep teen production of Hamlet: Through the Looking Glass, also in the Reporter.

Erik Rhea, Katherine Bickford, Sarah Daum and Calder
Johnson rehearsing Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 at HSU.

On the North Coast

Cloud 9 at HSU

Opening night of the HSU production of Cloud 9 answered some of the questions posed and implied in my previous post. Would this production be funny? Would it solve the second act problem? The answer in both cases is yes.

The Thursday night audience was about half the capacity of Gist, but the laughter was there. Even for those who might have been somewhat bewildered or dismayed by the lifestyles portrayed and point of view expressed, there was enough showmanship and built-in comedy of (in particular) males playing females that the author's intended style--comic--could take hold anyway. And there were enough people in the audience whose laughter was raucous and infectious to bouy that mood. That permission to laugh is important, because it provides access to the deeper sources of humor, and without that the play loses half its life and much of its general humanity.

In my previous experience of the play and in reviews of other productions I've read, I've found that the second act has been difficult to carry off successfully. The HSU production did it partly with a crisp pace and directness. But I suspect it succeeded also because the first act was not as funny as it could be.

The second act problem may be inherent in the difference between the two acts. The Victorians in Africa of the first act are so hypocritical and unconscious that they can easily be played as hysterically funny caricactures. But in the second act, set in modern London, the characters are "liberated," conscious--and very self-conscious-- of sex and gender roles and freedom, and the comedy is more ironic (though there is a scene or two of farce.) The problem is that the comic potential of the first act is so extreme that the second act will pale by comparison.

In this production, though, the temptation to make the first act as hysterically hilarious as it could be is avoided, and so there isn't the great letdown with the lower octane comedy of the second act. The play works better as a whole. If this was the director's intention, it works great. If it wasn't, it works great anyway.

That's also important because there are moments of drama and shocking intensity in both acts, that can have a revelatory effect in the midst of comedy, but not in the midst of tedium.

I also wrote about accents in that last post, and I'm pleased to report that on the whole they work well here. There is a contemporary middle class lilt to them in Act II--particularly Tisha Sloane's--and an appropriate contrast to the more formal dictions of the Imperial Victorians in Act I.

The characters in both acts are extreme, yet very human. While I mentioned Churchill's irony, seeing the second act reminds me how that irony is grounded in her humanity. The most touching moment for me was the conversation between the gay young man (whose speech about his promiscuous lifestyle may remind us that this play was written before AIDS) and the mother of the man he had been living with. Though fraught with misunderstandings and revelations, it ends up in a simple friendship beyond age, gender or sex. (It also seems very English.)

Opening night jitters aside, the cast was uniformly entertaining. Erik Rhea was a crowd favorite as the colonial wife, Betty, and his switch to Edward, the gay son who decides he's a Lesbian, was also very well and sympathetically performed. Tisha Sloane had a lot of quick changes of clothes and character in the first act, and a difficult role in the second--she was excellent throughout, with real depth to her characterization of Victoria in Act II.

By giving us real characters quickly, Sarah Daum, Katherine Bickford, Alex Gradine, Missy Hopper and Calder Johnson not only gave audiences what they needed to enter the play, they provided the great after-effect of musing on the connections between the characters they played in Act I with those they played in Act II. They are also to be saluted for their courage in taking on these parts and bringing the energy and commitment to them that brought them alive. Gradine had one monster speech, unlike anything else in the play, and he delivered it effectively. Perhaps even more impressively, The older Betty in Act II also had long speeches which verge on dithering at first, but her sincerity becomes something of the moral center of the play. So Katherine Bickford had to walk a fine line to make her credible, which she admirably did.

The set design, the music (especially the singing), lighting and the other elements of the production all worked to create these twin imagined worlds. Once you get used to his characteristic style of placing actors at a distance from each other to essentially declaim their lines, all the better to make stage pictures and navigate symbolic spaces, John Heckel's direction works well for this play. I thought he'd lost a lot of the bitter comedy in Brecht's Mother Courage last year with this style, but here it works, at least in conjunction with the non-Brechtian acting this cast accomplishes. I'm not sure the added cross-casting of Martin in Act II worked to fully illuminate that character and his role in the melange, but that amounts to a quibble.

Win, lose or draw, HSU productions bring plays and styles of theatre that aren't otherwise available on the North Coast. Theatre here would really be unbalanced and incomplete without it.

Cloud 9 continues at HSU on Saturday (Feb. 24) and next weekend, Thursday through Saturday (March 1-3) at 7:30 in Gist Hall Theatre.

Stage Matters Online

Caryl Churchill

Stage Matters Online

Equal Opportunity Humor

by William S. Kowinski

Caryl Churchill, author of Cloud 9, which will be presented at HSU beginning this week, is that anomaly of the celebrity age: an unknown major playwright. Tony Kushner has called her the greatest living English playwright, and her plays are done often in North America, not only in places with San Francisco values (like San Francisco), but (this spring alone) at the University of Pittsburgh and my alma mater, Knox College in downstate Illinois.

Still, “everybody knows Tom Stoppard but hardly anyone knows Caryl Churchill,” said the artistic director of a Philadelphia theatre which completed a Stoppard play and was beginning a Churchill festival. The comparison is apt, since they both hit the British theatre scene at about the same time, in the heady, flashy, London swings, everything-is-possible, late 1960s. Some of their differences may also suggest why Churchill is less known: she was more experimental, more openly collaborative, more political from the beginning, and more pioneering and radical in the ideas she played with. She was also the first woman playwright to be produced at the Royal Court Theatre, which became her artistic home.

That’s also meant that most discussion of Churchill has been in the various academic permutations of gender studies, cultural semiotics and political analysis. But while her plays have taken the lead in consciously and courageously confronting such issues, what often gets lost in all the ideology and specialized jargon is what a skilled, daring, energetic, witty and generous playwright she is.

I’ve had a good time reading some of her plays this week. There’s quite a variety--she wrote contemporary and historical dramas and comedies, radio and television plays, adaptations, stage plays that emphasized movement or song as well as those that depended on dialogue, etc. But what stands out about them all is how she expresses the irony of real life.

One difficulty may be that her plays are notoriously hard to stage. I’ve seen three productions, one of Mad Forest and two of Cloud 9, including its original New York staging, directed by Tommy Tune. I remember that production as having a dynamite first act, and a confusing second act. Cloud 9 is especially difficult because the two acts are so different: the first (which takes place in 19th century colonial Africa) verges on caricature, while the second (in modern London) is more naturalistic in tone.

Part of the problem may be the language difference. (Don’t laugh—one Churchill play was partly inspired by the different pronunciation of “ice cream” in England and America.) English English depends a great deal on class, place and time period. While the Brits in Act I may adopt upper class accents of the Queen’s English because they represent England in an African outpost of the Empire, they are basically middle class. If they were nobility, they wouldn’t be posted deep in the heart of darkness. The characters in Act II are openly urban middle class, and so their accents aren’t of the posh Masterpiece Theatre sort.

This may be difficult for Americans to grasp, but it affects the rhythms. It also reflects the differences of the characters: those in Act I are pretending and repressing, with tragic and hilarious results, while those in Act II (metaphorically the grown-up children of Act I) are aware of the issues and are trying to deal with them, though with residual and therefore hilarious bits of unconsciousness. That the second act takes place on a playground suggests the innocence and exploration of new roles and rules across generations, as well as anticipating pratfalls.

[text continues after photo]

Tisha Sloane in the HSU production of Cloud 9.

Caryl Churchill Continued

Certainly the content of gender identity and sexual repression as it relates to political power and social violence created difficulties for audiences in the 80s, when this play premiered over here. Men playing women pretending to be men was a Shakespearian era convention, but Churchill used gender-bending casting to explore and confront these issues. But even with the alarming ascent of reactionary fundamentalism, audiences today are better prepared to see what Churchill is getting at, and to get the jokes.

On the other hand, I can appreciate the weariness of those who feel they are constantly being told that the world is so awful because of people of their color, class, gender and/or sexuality. What I especially appreciate about Churchill is that I never feel demonized, and in the sense of trying to be part of the solution, I never feel excluded. I think this is partly due to how she links gender and racial prejudices to sexual repression generally, which seems accurate, and it makes the play more universal. But mostly I’m guessing it’s the irony in her writing and stagecraft. Irony is an equal opportunity deflator and illuminator.

The HSU production of Cloud 9, directed by John Heckel, begins in the Gist Hall Theatre this Thursday for a two-weekend run. If you are automatically offended by bad words, outrageous ideas and sexual situations in unconventional permutations, don’t go. You can find more information at http://Cloud9HSU.blogspot.com, including comments by the director. I put the blog together as the HSU Theatre, Film & Dance department publicist. The views expressed there represent the department. The views expressed here, as always, represent nobody but me.

Jeff De Mark

On the North Coast

Coming Up

Tonight (2/20) is your last chance to see The Duelist presented by Sanctuary Stage at Mazzotti's on the Plaza, for dinner at 6:30 and the show at 8. But you can still catch the show at Arts Alive! on March 3rd at 8pm at the Eureka Theatre, Film and Concert Center.

Singing, dancing and cartwheels in The Glories of Gloria, a solo show by Mooky (Kathleen Cornish) presented by Four on the Floor Theater, plays at the Arcata Playhouse Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 23-25 at 8 PM, and moves to Beginnings in Garberville on March 2 and 3…Teens from around the county are participating in Ferndale Rep’s Hamlet Through the Looking Glass, from March 1 to March 11…Jeff DeMark is reprising his Writing My Way Out of Adolescence in the HSU Studio Theatre as a benefit for HSU technical theatre students, on March 9 and 10 at 7:30.

Michael Frayn

Booking the Stage

The Human Touch

Here in America, land of geographically and socially separated enclaves of experts where only one "brand" per person is permitted, British writer Michael Frayn would be not only an anomaly but a suspicious character. As a playwright, he wrote "Noises Off," the international hit that critic Frank Rich called "the funniest play written in my lifetime," and "Copenhagen," a drama about quantum physicists, another international hit. Frayn is also an accomplished journalist, novelist, translator, screenwriter and writer of nonfiction, including philosophy, of which "The Human Touch" is the latest example. Moreover, it is not the "how to win friends" or just "how to win" sort of philosophy, but serious analysis of what we know and how we know it, particularly concerning the nature of scientific knowledge, as well as the nature of reality.

For more on Michael Frayn's new book, click here for my review in today's San Francisco Chronicle Book Review.

This is how I remember Lloyd Richards and August Wilson,
in his O'Neill uniform, pictured here under the signature old oak
at the O''Neill Center in Waterford, CN.

First Principles

Lloyd Richards' Fading Dream


In years past, this would be the season that playwrights would be waiting to hear whether they had been selected to participate in the summer National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Waterford, Conn. To say this is a month-long experience of crafting new plays and discovering new playwrights with the participation of of some of America's best theatre artists only hints at the magic that happened there. That used to happen there.

When I spent a couple of weeks there in 1991, on assignment to Smithsonian Magazine (an expanded version of my article is on the web here), there was some worry about the conference's future. But as long as the late Lloyd Richards was in charge, it was one of the most important places in American theatre, both in the nurturing of new writing (writers I met there have since become major voices in TV and film as well as regional and New York theatre) and in reaffirming the best ideals and practices of American theatre. One of the many New York actors who returned there every year described it as "renewing my vows."

But for the past few years I've watched from afar as the summer conference has deteriorated. They've had a couple of artistic directors since Richards' retired, at least one of them leaving under a cloud. Last spring-- a few months before Lloyd Richards died--the new artistic director, 31 year old Wendy Goldberg, gave an interview in American Theatre. Her quotes, and some statements in the story which seem to be based on impressions and information the writer got from her, suggests how far the O'Neill has strayed, and for my money, fallen. An article in the latest issue of The Dramatist suggests the situation is even worse.

For many years, Lloyd Richards was the head of Yale Drama and artistic director of the O''Neill's playwright conference. Richards directed the first New York production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 1957, arguably the first authentic portrayal of African American life on the American stage. But in his years of directing and discovering and nurturing playwrights of all races, his most important find was August Wilson, who created the richest and most sustained expression of African American life in the twentieth century, and in doing so, became a great American playwright. Richards discovered him when, after several years of his entries being rejected, August Wilson sent Ma Rainey's Black Bottom to the O'Neill.

But August Wilson wasn't the only discovery. The fledgling playwrights who spent July at the O'Neill included Wendy Wasserstein, John Guare, Christopher Durang, David Henry Hwang, Lee Blessing, Charles Fuller and Lanford Wilson. For two weeks, a playwright's script was the center of attention by a director, a dramaturg, a designer--all accomplished professionals--and professional actors, which might well include Obie, Tony or even Oscar winners. Writers could rewrite as much or as little as they wanted, and everyone was ready and eager to make changes, even between the two performances each play received. Everyone in the summer community attended every play, and everyone was invited to carefully organized critiques a day or so later.

Lloyd Richards was the heart and soul of the O'Neill, so important to many American playwrights. He transformed it into a community concentrating on honing and freeing new voices in theatre. He was utterly respected by everyone, for his discipline and gentleness, his rigor and humor, his attentiveness to detail and insistence on communicating the big picture, so everyone knew and shared the same vision of the O'Neill process.

For four decades, the O'Neill had a policy of open submissions: anybody could send a script and it would be considered. Without such a policy, it's doubtful that many if not most of the new voices the O'Neill discovered and nurtured would have had a chance, and that seems especially true for its most important discovery: August Wilson.

A few years ago, the new regime tried to change that, and limit submissions to pre-selected playwrights. There was a hue and cry and unsolicited scripts were again considered, though in a narrower time frame, and with conditions that made entering a pretty pricey proposition. Goldberg reinstated open submissions, and though I don't know the exact rules and regs this year, statements that she makes in the interview suggest the situation hasn't really returned to what it was."We've had 800 submissions this year, a record amount of plays," Goldberg is quoted as saying.

First of all, unless she is judging them by weight, she probably meant "a record number of plays." But even that is simply false, and by quite a lot. There were some 1500 scripts submitted for the 1991 conference, according to Lloyd Richards, and confirmed by others that summer.

There were also 12 playwrights chosen for 1991, although I believe they had previously hosted 14, but budget shortfalls forced both fewer playwrights and an altered schedule--the pre-conference in the spring, during which the playwrights spend a couple of days simply each reading their plays aloud, had to be folded into the summer conference.

But the conference in 2006 hosted but eight playwrights, and one of them did not emerge from the regular submissions process. Moreover, this play was "workshopped" before a scheduled production in Atlanta, something that Richards' resisted. He didn't want the O'Neill to become a venue tied to specific productions elsewhere.

The Dramatist article (by Steven Ginsberg) shows that the O'Neill has become even more restrictive for this summer. He writes that of the eight spots in 2007, two are pre-determined, one to the Alliance Theater and another to the Abbey Theater in Dublin. A third is devoted to a Theater for Youth Project, and a fourth "is taken by an established playwright who was likely 'not in competition'". Ginsberg conjectures this year one of these is "awarded to a playwright wth commissions from several major theatres" and another to a new play by the playwright who authored the Youth Project play. He reckons that unsolicted submissions are actually vying for two spots.

In the Richards era, it wasn't unusual for playwrights who had been at the conference before to return with a new play. In fact, that was part of the culture of the place--and the new playwrights learned from the O'Neill veterans. But the year I visited at least half of the playwrights were new to the O'Neill, and several didn't have much in the way of significant productions in their resumes. (Ginsberg's article is ostensibly about whether it is worth it to unproduced playwrights to pay the fees to enter contests, of which the O'Neill has traditionally been the gold standard. He mentions that the O'Neill's fee is relatively high, at $35. It used to be much less. But what he doesn't mention is that the O'Neill, which used to require only one copy of the script, requires several bound copies now--a few years ago it was 5--which could easily push the cost of submitting a script to more than $100.)

In the Richards era, the O'Neill was about the playwright and the play, and nothing else. That clearly is no longer true. Goldberg had done away with the system Richards instituted (and which other places copied) of simple, modular sets and basic production values, and script-in-hand performance, so that playwrights could change things right up to the minute of production, based on what they learned in their creative collaboration with all the others involved.

In defending the use of more elaborate sets and production values for some plays, Goldberg says that "each play is different" which is a truism but also signifies the distinct possibility that some plays are going to be favored in light of imminent productions elsewhere. In fact, before Richards took over and even early in his tenure, there were such elaborate productions. He put a stop to them because of all the chaos they caused. Being so close to New York, the O'Neill always had the pressure of New York producers coming up to shop for new plays, and the more elaborate productions gave some plays an unfair advantage, and the competition and commercialism threatened to swamp the festival as a place to help playwrights find their voices and make the best scripts possible. So he went to the strict rules of simple sets, and the same basic production values for all plays.

The critique system Richards set up is also slandered in the article, as some sort of vicious punishment visited upon the victimized playwright. I don't know what they were like in later years, but when I was there, Richards himself made sure these sessions were positive. He spoke before every one of them, about their purpose and how they fit into the larger purpose of the conference.

Through design and through his presence, authority and leadership, Lloyd Richards created a sense of the process as almost sacred, as touching the foundations of theatre and theatrical creativity and collaboration. That's why the actor I met, who did a lot of TV playing cops and criminals (an awful lot of O'Neill actors show up in episodes of Law & Order, a series co-created by an O'Neill playwright) described his participation as "renewing my vows." The O'Neill was so important to so many people in the theatre, and so treasured, because it was a kind of temporary monastery (with a lot of un-monklike--or nunlike--behavior, to be sure) for the kind of pure creative process that the theatre needs. If it has succumbed to whatever pressures and necessities, or to poor judgment, then theatre will suffer for it, and so will playwrights.

While a new generation of administrators has every right to their own vision, and certainly a responsibility to respond to today's realities, they might try respecting what made the O'Neill a living legend in world theatre. And the people who created it.

On the North Coast

Club Shampoo, the potpouri event inaugurating the Arcata Playhouse, played to a full house Saturday night. It was a real community event, from the children and teenagers in the audience, to the conversation in line about a memorial service for someone who had recently died. The audience seemed to know all the performers, and the performers knew each other. There was a lot of affection expressed for hosts Jackie Dandeneau and David Ferney.

There was music (including some sharply political songs from Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor), clowning (the Los Payasos Mendigos duo) and two brief stories by Jeff DeMark that gave voice to the moral essence of the venture. Everyone seemed happy to see this Arcata venue back in business. Carole Wolfe, director of Vagabond, told me that they've already received several solid inquiries about renting the space. Jackie announced that donations to Four on the Floor Productions would be matched dollar for dollar by the Humboldt Area Foundation.

Among the attendees was Michael Fields, co-AD of Dell'Arte, back from the Company's travels, which included a five week gig at the Marin Theatre, doing eight shows a week of a version of Tartuffe developed in Blue Lake, which he hopes to present locally at part of this summer's festival.

Birth of the Arcata Playhouse

In cities across the country big and small, new artistic energies have often found focus in abandoned industrial districts, where fine old buildings with lots of space offer opportunities for lofts, studios and performance venues, plus the people-oriented businesses that come to surround them.

Now and again the old Creamery in Arcata, in the largely depopulated and marginal area west of K Street, has suggested this potential. It hosts the Arcata Ballet, DanceCenter and New World Youth Ballet, with spaces for rehearsal, classes and performances. Years ago, the legendary Pacific Arts Center Theatre began here. Still, it hasn't reached the critical mass to transform the area into a familiar audience destination.

But there are signs that may be changing -- specifically, a new sign in front saying "Arcata Playhouse," and new paint being applied to the foyer last week from a tall ladder to which is affixed a small red teddy bear.

Though the fresh paint outside and inside is only the first step in the planned transformation, this venue's potential is being suggested and perhaps tested with a gala opening event this Saturday, featuring local luminaries such as Rudi Galindo, Jeff DeMark, Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor, and hosted by the couple that comprises one-third of the partnership attempting to create a viable and affordable playhouse for theatre, music and other forms of performance, with a family emphasis and a community reach.

They are Jackie Dandeneau and David Ferney, whose Four on the Floor Productions is partnering with Shoebox Puppet Company (Corey Stevens, owner of Muddy's Hot Cup) and Vagabond Players, which most recently operated the space as the Stargarden Theatre.

Pacific Arts Center Theatre had spawned Vagabond, which struggled on after PACT faded away. But true to its name, it was homeless in 2005 when Carole Wolfe, its volunteer artistic director, called the Creamery looking for storage space.  Instead she found Vagabond's new home, in the same place where PACT had begun some 30 years before.

Other groups also used the space (including Four on the Floor) but this summer Vagabond had fallen several months behind in the rent.  That's when Dandeneau and Ferney put together the partnership and became the venue's managers.  Now all three enterprises--Four on the Floor, Shoebox Puppets and Vagabond--have a home, and the rent is split three ways.

Ferney and Dandeneau are Dell'Arte people.  Ferney graduated from the school about 20 years ago, and became a member of the locally famous family comic acrobatic troupe, Los Payasos Mendigos.  The troupe traveled far and wide, which is how he met Dandeneau at the Edmonton Fringe Festival.  She was with a traveling feminist sketch comedy group called Full Figure Theatre.

"We would hook up in New Zealand, and hang out together in England," Ferney recalled.  "Meanwhile, I was living in San Francisco and she was in Vancouver.  Finally we realized we would either have to shack up or call it quits."

They chose the former, moved to Pender Island between Vancouver and Victoria, started a small theatre company, and a family.  Then Dell'Arte called, and hired them both.

They recently began branching out to produce shows through Four in the Floor, which brought them to the Stargarden Theatre, and to the managing partnership of the Arcata Playhouse.  Noting the couple's professional experience, Ferney said, "I'm interested in exploring a hybrid of professional and community theatre."

Upgrading the space is a major goal.  "Getting a decent lighting and sound system, some decent drapes, figuring out the best seating arrangement," Ferney said.  "Corey is a great partner because he just took over that cafe, and he's really interested in getting concessions together, and taking care of all that.  So we want to elevate the venue and make it a happening place in Arcata."

"I'm excited," Carole Wolfe professed in the Playhouse lobby, paint roller in hand.  "There's all this new energy--it's fun again!"

The Playhouse is going forward with a performance later this month by Mookie Cornish (Cirque de Soleil clown and Dell'Arte grad) and Faust Mask Works from Toronto in May.  Synapsis, which is temporarily displaced from its Eureka home, is one of what they hope will be many local groups to perform here.

David and Jackie talked enthusiastically about the possibilities, especially for family-oriented shows and filling community needs, such as a place for young people and seniors to hold performance events.

But they're also thinking of adult theatre--the kind the Pacific Arts Center Theatre used to do.  "I've met a lot of people who are really excited about the rejuvenation of the old PACT space," Jackie said.  "I'd like to do a PACT-style show, with some of the actors who were involved in it."

"You know, pretty much anything is possible, once you've got the space," David observed.  "You might be thinking, 'Oh, I've always wanted to do Ionesco's Rhinoceros, so why not?"

The TV Stage

Tom Stoppard is the guest on Charlie Rose tonight (Wednesday). His latest play, Rock & Roll is about the revolution that ultimately led to his fellow playwright, Vaclev Havel, becoming president of the Czech Republic. Stoppard was himself exiled from Czechslovakia as a child. One of Stoppard's earlier plays--one of his "adaptations"--called On the Razzle--is being produced as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival season.

When not pre-empted, Charlie Rose is seen at 11 p. on KEET.

This Week's Column

Jake's Women

There's a particular interest in a writer seeing a play about a writer who is too much the observer and not enough the participant in his own life, especially when one is among those reviewers who began as a participant in theatre -- as a playwright, actor, director and even a song composer, and whose role now is as journalist and judge.

Well, when you get a role, play it.

The column--a review of Jake's Women at the North Coast Rep-- continues here at the North Coast Journal. Sneak preview: I liked the performances and the production more than the play itself.

Other reviews of this show are Barry Blake's in the Times-Standard, and Wendy Butler's in the Eureka Reporter. Barry went past Jake as a writer to see a more universal message in his fantasizing, and as usual integrated his description of the story with choice evaluative comments--he especially complimented the costume design. I'm not sure he liked the play any better than I did, though. Wendy was even more bothered by the accent that I was--actually I thought Michael Thomas had arrived at a more stable New York accent by the second act; in the first act it was hard to tell whether he was supposed to be from Boston or Brooklyn. And it wasn't just him in the first act. I'm guessing they got it together in later shows.

Dame Judi Dench

A Little Illness Music

I've got this cold or flu kind of thing. You can't count on a regular cold pattern anymore, apparently--they seem to have their individual characteristics, and ups and downs. But I've never been a suck-it-up and soldier-on type. I don't get sick very often, but when I do, I do it up big. I stay in bed longer, and the rest is resting. "Feed a cold" is also advice I've made into a lifestyle.

So I don't do much. This time around I spent several hours watching a VHS tape I made from TV programs in the 90s, back when the A&E cable channel actually tried to be an Arts & Entertainment channel, and Bravo! was about performance arts. Now they all play the same CSI reruns and have their own perverse "reality" shows. But there was a time that one or both of them ran imported programs from England, where an interviewer called Melvyn Bragg did interviews and so on with notable actors and other theatre artists.

I watched his interview/lunch with Albert Finney, and two fascinating pieces following Ian McKellen (then a youthful 45) in rep at the National Theatre over a season, and Judi Dench rehearsing and playing in A Little Night Music. The McKellen piece was a good insight into that life (in which he might be playing one part, rehearsing the next play, and learning lines for one after that on the same day) as well as a peek into his working process. One of the plays he was working on was Michael Frayn's translation and edited version of Chekhov's first and unproduced play, which Frayn dubbed Wild Honey. As he rehearsed, McKellen was driving himself crazy trying to understand the character he was playing, even going back to a full translation of Chekhov's script, with many long philosophical speeches. He was afraid he would be a disaster and bring down the production. He noted ruefully into his tape recorder that Frayn had shown up for a run-through and had simply grinned. But when the play opened, McKellen was astonished to hear the audience laughing--they had just revealed to him that the play was a comedy. It was also a hit. (Frayn himself tells this story about McKellen in the introduction to his "Plays: Two" volume.)

The Dench piece went back into her acting history with some wonderful clips from old productions. Olivier's "cry" as Oedipus is well-known theatrical legend, but Dench as Lady MacBeth let out a truly terrifying and prolonged scream that deserves its own fame: it said volumes about the character. Dame Dench played Mother Courage in 2005, which must have been something to see, and hear. In this film piece, director Sir Peter Hall says that Dench was blessed with an extraordinary voice, "and in theatre, voice is very nearly all."

Brecht by Man Ray

First Principles

Eric Bentley

The Jan./Feb. issue of The Dramatist includes an interview with Eric Bentley, now 91 years old. For me, Bentley is the benchmark of theatre criticism and scholarship. He's an extraordinary writer, fair and yet with strong opinions, eloquent and writerly, yet direct. His books, such as The Playwright as Thinker (and Thinking about the Playwright), In Search of Theater and The Life of the Drama are invaluable and indispensible--and in that peculiar way that the best books on theatre can be: exciting. Bentley was also a scholar and a playwright of the 1950s Blacklist in America, and it was when researching that subject that I first came upon his work (though it wouldn't be until the 1990s that I read his theatre criticism. I haven't yet read his books specifically on Brecht and Shaw.) Bentley has a clear vision of what he believes theatre should be and do, but he is also nuanced and generous.

It's a short interview, touching on some of his history. He was interested in music and languages first, and more or less slid into theatre by meeting Brecht in California and agreeing to translate some of his work from German into English. He also acted a few small parts in Shakespeare repertory-- plays which happened to be directed by John Geilgud. Right place, right time, and he was off.

Bentley became Brecht's first and persistent champion, although he is clear that he disapproved of Brecht's continued fascination with Stalinist Communism (he faults the elderly G. B. Shaw for the same blind spot.) He also championed Shaw when he was unpopular, as apparently he is again on the English stage.

In this interview Bentley had these comments on Brecht's Mother Courage, which was seen here at HSU, directed by John Heckel: "The songs in Brecht's plays are quite unlike songs in anybody else's plays [in which they are] incidental...but in Mother Courage... they are pillars on which the whole play stands. They are not secondary but primary. It's the songs plus some dialogue--not dialogue with a few songs."

His comments on his own career are clear-eyed and instructive. He says that his plays are more often read than staged, but this is typical for plays that last. But he is disappointed that his later books haven't had the impact of his earlier ones. "...as a writer facing a public, it is easier to be young than to be old. It is easier to be immature and wild rather than to be controlled and have a bit of common sense. All my first efforts were received much more favorably than my later efforts. That's something that disappoints me very much, because I feel that my later efforts were better."

This interview isn't on line, but others are, like this one specifically on Brecht. And since the Young Actors Guild production of A Dream Play just concluded, while John Heckel is preparing his next production for later this month at HSU (Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9), here's a link to my essay on the two Brecht productions done here last year, Heckel's Mother Courage and the Young Actors Guild adaptation of Caucasian Chalk Circle.

Translations

Brian Friel's Translations has been revived on Broadway, and was reviewed in the New York Times recently. This photo is from the HSU production in 2005, directed by Bernadette Cheyne, with Bob Wells.

The Dream Play and North Coast Prep

The Dream Play by August Strindberg is performed at the Van Duzer Theatre by the Young Actors Guild. These shows from the Northcoast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy are unique. They bring together young people devoted to an arts-based education with visionary theatrical veterans (director Jean Heard Bazemore and set designer Gerald Beck) in adaptations of stylistically unconventional and substantive plays that these days just aren’t seen much on the North Coast.

 The play’s not the only thing of interest on the stage. As with performances of other high school, junior high and young people’s group (such as those at Dell’Arte, Ferndale Rep and NCRT) that aren’t reviewed here, the experience of witnessing young people discovering themselves on stage can be inspiring, resonant and educational for the audience as well as the students.

 The play in turn can itself be infused with more meaning by youthful enthusiasm and sincerity. The Dream Play has all of that, plus an efficiently flowing, focused production, and Beck and Bazemore’s magnificent stage pictures: there’s a scene with a trapezoidal door suspended in space, with similarly shaped screens floating above an elegantly composed set of actors that’s breath-taking.

 These are juniors and seniors, some of them in their fourth or fifth play, and some on stage for the first time. The cast also includes exchange students from China, Germany and Ghana. A school production allows large casts, and there are as many as 20 actors on the stage in this one, with a Greek-style chorus that big enough to suggest the power of the people’s voice, whether used for good or ill.

 I saw Saturday’s performance, with Isaiah Cooper deftly expressing the Officer’s changing moods and circumstances (he alternates with Sterling Johnson-Brown), and Tehya Wood, stately, radiant and beautifully costumed as the Daughter of the god Indra (she alternates with Hanna Nielsen and Nicky Vakilova.)

 Bohdan Banducci, blessed with a fine stage voice and presence, plays the impoverished Lawyer whose marriage to the Daughter reveals earthly woes. Fiona Ryder’s aria wowed the crowd, student James Forrest composed the dramatically effective video projections, and all the actors capably brought out the humanity and the humor of the characters and the play.

 This isn’t pure Strindberg—there are musical interpolations and a much different ending, extolling the virtues of relationship and group action rather than the author’s emphasis on the eternal tensions of the human condition. But that’s also fitting for a youthful vision, and I found that seeing this play in action illuminated a further reading of Strindberg’s text.

 Saturday’s audience, which was clearly involved in each stage moment, included a certain couple with an extra interest. Joyce Hough and Fred Neighbor are familiar figures in the North Coast music scene.  Jean Bazemore directed an HSU production of A Dream Play in the Van Duzer in 1969. Joyce Hough played the Daughter, and Neighbor was the Lawyer. They met while doing the play, and their nightly 20 minutes alone crouched in a crawlspace waiting for their entrance might have had something to do with an ensuing romance and marriage a year or so later. They were there together Saturday, sitting in front near Gerry Beck, who also designed the 1969 production.

Opening on the North Coast

Jake's Women by Neil Simon comes to North Coast Repertory on January 25, with Michael Thomas, Jolene Hayes, Shelley Stewart, Suza Lambert Bowser, Kim Hodel, Theresa Ireland, Condry Whisenhunt and Derby McLaughlin, directed by James Read. Details on dates and times here. Pictured is the Broadway cast playbill from 1992.

Quoth

Michael Frayn: "To be part of a good audience is exhilarating."

First Principles

Let's Hear It for the Audience

I've just finished writing a review for the San Francisco Chronicle of British playwright Michael Frayn's new book, The Human Touch, which is a book of philosophy. Though he writes nonfiction, fiction and screenplays, Frayn is most famous in the U. S. for his comic farce, Noises Off (which I saw on Broadway, and had a seat so far from the stage that I vowed never to economize again with rush tickets; I see Broadway plays so rarely that it makes no sense to ruin the experience with a bad seat) and his intellectual drama, Copenhagen (which I would love to see on stage; I saw the much truncated film version, and I admire the play I read.) Though this book is about the nature of knowledge and even reality, I see the playwright in it--or such is a premise of my review.

Though the central point of the book is a central preoccupation of many of his plays, it may have been especially inspired by aspects of the quantum physics and the ensuing philosophy in Copenhagen, which is about two giants of atomic and quantum physics, Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, in World War II. The uncertainity of what they each said about the Allied and German atomic bomb programs remains an international mystery and inspired the dramatic action of the play. (The mystery and Frayn's involvement in it became the basis of an elaborate hoax perpetrated on him, which he describes with good humor in his little book with David Burke, The Copenhagen Papers. )

However, the point of mentioning all this here is a passage I came across in the introduction to Frayn's first volume of his collected plays, and wanted to share. It's about the role of the audience in theatre. Here's Frayn:

"I sometimes feel that the skill of audiences is not always sufficiently noted. Some theatregoers arrive late, certainly, some of them comment on the performances aloud and wait for the laugh-lines to cough. But the suprising thing is how few behave like this, and how many understand the conventions and are prepared to abide by them. To find two, or five, or ten good actors to perform a play is difficult; to find two hundred, five hundred, or a thousand good people to watch it, night after night, is a miracle. So many people in one room who will sit quietly and listen for two hours---not calling out slogans, not breaking down under the strain of so much communal self-discipline! To be a member of a good audience is exhilarating."

O'Toole on the Tube

"Actors are people, only more so." So said Peter O'Toole on the latest in a series of fascinating conversations with Charlie Rose, broadcast last night. If you missed it, you can see it here. This is O'Toole in probably his most famous film role, as Lawrence of Arabia. Despite 8 nominations for brilliant lead acting, he's never won an Oscar--but hopes are high for his new film, Venus. In the interview he talks about the importance of his first love: the theatre.

Maggie and Me (and Lettice & Lovage)

I once had after-theatre supper with Maggie Smith, sort of.

Familiar to a new generation as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, she was then known as the Oscar-nominated star of Travels With My Aunt, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and other films. I was actually supping with Pat Mitchell, then the entertainment reporter for a Boston television station, now the head of PBS. The restaurant catered to Boston's theatre people, including those participating in touring shows. It was a lively place. At one point in the evening I heard someone playing the piano and singing who sounded a lot like Joel Grey, fresh from his Cabaret fame. I turned around: It was Joel Grey.

I was seated next to Pat but at the next table, across from me and a little to the left, was Maggie Smith, in town starring in Noel Coward's Private Lives. She was dining with a man older than both of us who I didn't recognize.  I had an unobstructed view of her any time I turned my head that way, but Pat was on my right and quite attractive as well, so I wasn't tempted to stare.  But I did turn to see her looking at her companion with those large, empathetic blue eyes, both hands on his arm.

I thought of that moment when reading that British playwright Peter Schaffer wrote Lettice and Lovage for Maggie Smith, at her request.  I could readily believe she could be very persuasive.

Shaffer was already famous for Equus and Amadeus, both serious plays focused on male characters (perhaps that's why they both end in "us.")  But Lettice and Lovage would be a comedy principally featuring older women.  The risk worked out well for both author and actor.  The play won a Best of the Year award in London, and when it came to Broadway in 1990, Maggie Smith (who played Lettice) won the Best Actress Tony.

This week Lettice and Lovage comes to Ferndale Rep, with Marilyn Foot as Lettice and the Rep's artistic director Marilyn McCormick reprising her role as Lotte from the Rep's production a decade ago.

"It's a sweet story about two women who basically don't fit into society, " says director Rene Grinnell.  "They form a friendship that eventually becomes what saves them."

Lettice (a name derived from the Latin word for gladness) Douffet is the dramatically-inclined and history-minded daughter of a Frenchwoman who ran an all-women theatrical troupe that performed Shakespeare in French.  But now she is a tour guide at a London house of historical significance, if not much interest.  As the play begins she is livening up her patter with flamboyant inaccuracies.  Lotte, her temperamental opposite, is her boss who fires her for this transgression.  This of course turns out to be the beginning rather than the end of their relationship.

The play deals playfully but meaningfully with issues of reality and fantasy, an authentic versus a conventional life, the present versus the past, and more topically, with the ugliness of contemporary buildings and the need to preserve classic architecture.

It is also very English in its references and humor (or humour) but the Ferndale production took this as a challenge.  "Everyone had a lot of fun doing the research on the history, the architecture and most of all on British life," Grinnell said.   Since Lettice and Lovage is still produced often in America, it must translate pretty well.

Camelot Revisited

from an HSU production of Camelot in 2003

A newly rewritten and restaged version of the classic Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot will begin its maiden tour on January 30 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. According to this Reuters report, the show has been re-focused to address deficiencies that have been present since its opening on Broadway in the early 1960s. It's shorter, with more stage action, especially in the troublesome second act. Though a few songs have been dropped, at least one has been reinstated that was heard on the original cast album but not in the show itself.

Camelot was the first Broadway show I saw, on my first visit to New York when I was a freshman in high school. I saw the original production with the original cast, which included Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. With its romantic updating and contemporary meaning of the Arthurian myth, and the wit of both the music and lyrics, it remains my favorite stage musical. For me, not many measure up to it.

I remember being completely transported by the first act, and then feeling a little lost in the second act, until the very end. I always thought it was because of my inexperience, but apparently this was a more common impression. I saw the HSU production a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. The new version is currently trying out at the La Mirada Theatre in southern California, starring Michael York.

First Principles

The Invention of Empathy

The January issue of American Theatre contains a remarkable essay by Oskar Eustis, the new artistic director of the Public Theatre in New York. It's actually excerpted from a speech he gave at a Theatre Communications Group forum--and I urge you to read it all here.

Eustis talks about Joseph Papp, founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival (the free festival in the park that revolutionized American theatre) and the nonprofit Public Theatre--how Papp saw the Festival as the dramatic equivalent of the public library, providing access to everyone, for free. Eustis goes on to talk about the relationship of theatre in America to American ideals and founding ideas. He traces drama as a fundamentally democratic form back to the Greeks:

As soon as Thespis turned and spoke to someone else, as soon as he invented dialogue, everything changed. The storyteller—who has had this authorial, god-like, unified perspective—isn't right anymore. His point of view is not the authorial point of view. He is one of two points of view that are on stage. At that juncture we realize that truth resides not in the storyteller—truth resides somehow in the dialogue, in the space between two people. You're imagining that you're in my shoes: You empathize with me, and then empathize with whoever I'm talking to. That act—that empathic leap of imagination—is the democratic act. In order for a democracy to work you have to believe that nobody has a monopoly on truth. That there is no such thing as absolute truth—otherwise the whole idea of democracy is nonsensical. All it would be is a compromise. In order to really believe in democracy, you have to believe that truth resides in the dialogue between different points of view.

It is such a powerful idea and a true one: theatre is about entertainment, yes, but it is also about empathy. By creating characters that are basically real, and showing them interacting in dialogue, drama allows the audience a simultaneous objectivity (that's not me, I'm out here watching) and subjectivity (I feel that way, too; that person is like me) that allows both consciousness of self and empathy for others.

Drama tests preconceptions, the standard accepted view, and every ideology. Even great writers with strong ideological beliefs, like Tolstoy, could not ignore counter-examples and other points of view in his dramatic fiction. Eustis says it was that way from the beginning. He writes about the earliest Greek play we have: "Aeschylus's The Persians. It is one of the few Greek tragedies not based on mythological material." It is about the defining moment for ancient Greece--its triumph over the greatest power of its time, imperial Persia. Eustis writes:

It's a chance for the Greeks to relive the pleasure of having defeated the Persians. But you also can't read the text without knowing absolutely that Aeschylus was asking his audience to identify with the Persians—eight years after this war. He was asking them to imagine what it felt like to lose this war, what it felt like from the other person's point of view. And he was also doing something even a little bit more subversive than that, I think.

He was saying, "We've triumphed. We're the most powerful. We sit on top of the world. But look who, eight years ago, was sure that their empire would last forever. Look who was positive that God was on their side. Look who was sure that their armies could never be defeated. And think of what happened."

This is the power of drama. It is true on all scales and all levels. Read this essay--you'll be glad you did.

Two other comments: When I first started going to New York regularly in the late 70s and early 80s, I loved going to Papp's Public Theatre. I often stayed with a friend in the East Village, when it was still a kind of urban wasteland, and even though I didn't know any theatregoers (my friends were into music, my business was usually journalistic), I passed on CBGB's to walk over to the Public as often as I could. I saw the latest Sam Shepard plays there, and Kevin Kline's Hamlet. There were several plays going on at the same time, and there were usually rush tickets available to something, so the already relatively cheap tickets were even cheaper.

It was an exciting place. I always saw actors I recognized and other figures in the arts in the lobby and going in and out of the theatres. Once I was about to leave a men's room and had my hand on the door when it opened towards me from the other side. I found myself eye to eye with John Housman. The Public put on the newest work, and it was receptive to outsiders. I got one of the few real responses to a play I sent around back then--a positive, encouraging letter--from the Public.

The second comment is that I've thought about doing this blog for awhile, but I wasn't quite motivated enough to actually start it. I still don't know if it's a good idea, but when I read this essay, I was compelled to start it--because Eustis said so much that needs to be heard.

Mikado and Cinderella for Holidays 2006

There might have been no Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin, no Dorothy Fields, Lorenz Hart or Alan Jay Lerner; certainly no Kalmar and Ruby (the composing team on classic Marx Brothers movies) and perhaps even no Lennon and McCartney, if there hadn't been a Gilbert and Sullivan.

W.S. Gilbert wrote the ingenious, anarchic lyrics, and Arthur Sullivan the bracing music for 14 comic operas first performed in London in the late 19th century (the last of which premiered when Cole Porter was in kneepants). The greatest and most famous were H.M.S Pinafore,The Pirates of Penzance and the most performed (though probably not the best) The Mikado.

In his libretto, Gilbert seemed to have learned Jonathan Swift's basic trick of lampooning his time and place by locating it safely at some fictional distance -- in Japan, for instance, then known only through the usual bag of clichés and falsehoods common to Imperial ignorance. The Mikado is obviously more about England than Japan, and the current North Coast Rep production extends the gentle satire to here and now, as in the addition of telemarketers to people who would be "never missed."

The Mikado is sometimes mounted as a silky spectacle (probably one reason it's done so often), but while Suzanne Ross' scene design is efficient and Marcia Hutson's costumes (including kimonos painted by Jennifer Mackey) are handsome and occasionally splashy, they don't overwhelm the real fun of the story -- the songs and the performances.

 Dianne Zuleger's direction keeps everything on track, which liberates this as a performers' show, and at NCRT pretty much everyone shines. Bob Service as a fussily corrupt, self-pitying Pooh-Bah; Jordan Matteoli as a silent-movie romantic hero Nanki-Poo; Anders Carlson as a forlorn Lord High Executioner who manages in the end to reconcile his British fair play with his craven ambition, and Lonnie Blankenchip Jr. in his flawless turn as the deranged Mikado -- all judiciously employ their physical comedy skills with hilarious effect.

Darcy Daughtry and Serena Zelezny have their shining moments in supporting parts: The "schoolgirls" who sing one of the play's best-known songs, "Three Little Maids From School Are We," give a jolt of energy to the first act, and the show never looks back from there.

In last season's Once Upon A Mattress (NCRT) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Ferndale Rep), Minderella Willins excelled at playing innocent ingénues, but in this show she is the antagonist, with long red evil Queen nails out of Snow White, and she is just as convincing and mesmerizing. Her singing continues to be a wonder.

 Laura Hathaway is appealing as the love interest, Yum Yum, and it is her thrilling voice that is the most emotionally powerful of this show's many pleasing elements. It's a winner.

 When Carol Martinez saw her first play in a theatre at the age of two, she was so small that her mother had to hold her seat down for the entire performance so it wouldn't flip up and fold her away. The show was Alice in Wonderland, and she claims to remember parts of it to this day: "the cards falling from the sky at the end -- the magic of it."

 Currently working as a lawyer in Eureka as her day job, she grew up listening to the soundtracks her mother bought of traveling Broadway shows that came through Orange County, "So when I was about 10 years old, I knew all the lyrics to Oklahoma, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, all of those. I've been a musical theatre nerd for a long time."

This weekend sees the opening of Rodger and Hammerstein's Cinderella,the second show she's directed at Ferndale Rep (it's also her second musical; last season's Some Enchanted Evening was her first). Written originally for the fledgling medium of television in 1957, Cinderella became a stage musical soon after.

 The Ferndale version will feature Nanette Voss and Essie Bertain alternating as Cinderella, Tyler Rich as Prince Charming and Liz Power as the Fairy Godmother. There are 10 children in the cast, and Martinez has especially enjoyed working with the young teens she's seen growing up in the rehearsal process, "becoming really responsible, really encouraging and supporting each other."

As for the experience of directing the show, she saw Cinderella's tragedy differently than most. "It was tragic that no one loved her, that her stepmother and stepsisters treated her so badly. But the real tragedy was that she had no one to love, no way to express her love, until the Prince, which is interesting in light of the Christmas season when we say it is better to give than to receive. For Cinderella, that was really true."

Cinderella begins its run at Ferndale Rep this Friday, Nov. 24, and with it the holiday madness really starts.

The Dell'Arte Company opens its 26th annual holiday show, Entrances and Exits, that same Friday at the Carlo Theatre. Following a Saturday show the troupe embarks on its traditional tour of free performances beginning at HSU's Van Duzer Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 26. The show heads out of the county the following week, then returns for a series of local hops from Dec. 4-10, landing back at the Carlo for the Dec. 14-17 weekend. You should find the schedule at dellarte.com, or call 668-5663, ext. 20.

Next Thursday, Nov. 30, HSU opens its final show of 2006, Sheridan's comedy of gossip, The School for Scandal, directed by Redwood Curtain's Clint Rebik. It runs the customary two weekends; more information at scandalhsu.blogspot.com.