BACK STAGE WEST
June 28, 2001
Waiting for
Bigot: Last week marked
the end of an era with the closings of M Brauer's delightful Wilde Childe at the Actors' Gang's El Centro space and
Steven Leigh Morris' Moscow, in a limited workshop run at A.S.K.'s Common Ground Festival,
also a Gang production helmed by the troupe's resident directing genius, Tracy
Young. These were more than just another pair of shows: They were the last Gang
shows before the new regime takes over, as founding artistic director/CEO Tim
Robbins returns to lead the troupe he helped start in 1981. Next week marks not
only a new lease on the Gang's Hollywood space (signed by Robbins) but also the
start of workshops on a pair of plays to which he's invited longtime Gang
members and newer associates. He's also invited Theatre du Soleil's Georges
Bigot, whose commedia-based theatrical "Style" was an early
inspiration of the first Gangsters, to workshop and mount a new Chekhov
production at the Gang space. Robbins' transition team includes two new
producing directors: Veronica Brady (a Naked Angel who directed Beth Henley's Signature last year and Julie Jensen's Two-Headed this year) and Lee Ann Groff (a seasoned
stage producer, most recently with the Colorado Actors Theatre, co-founded with
husband Gregory Wagrowski, a star performer in the glory days of LATC).
We must note our
sadness that Mark Seldis, the Gang's tireless and thoughtful managing director,
went on sabbatical in January and never came back--and our gladness that he
looks so much more rested and happy these days. And we bid farewell for now to
Don Luce, the troupe's bone-crunchingly hard-working technical director since
Robbins temporarily stepped down from the company's helm in 1996; with Robbins
back, Luce has been let go. Like Seldis, Don will probably relish a break from
his intense Gang responsibilities. One hitch: He's also an actor, and as such
was an essential part of director/writer Young's Jung-themed Dreamplay, easily the best thing I've seen at the
Gang, ever--but which was presented last year as a workshop, not open for
review, and which is reportedly scheduled as part of a planned 20th anniversary
season next February.
It's no big
secret that Robbins' return to power has alienated some core Gangsters who
valued the company's recent years as a fairly democratic (if dysfunctional)
family in which each member had a gratifying artistic stake. So will the Gang
remain the artistic home of all the strong personalities I've come to know and
love--which to me, in fact, are the Gang? I just missed Robbins' last directorial
effort, The Good Person of Setzuan at the Odyssey in 1991; so for me the Actors' Gang
"brand" is identified with the brilliance of just about everyone but
Robbins. I sincerely look forward to seeing his and Bigot's work at the Gang--and
I hope just as sincerely that I'm not looking back on a deeply rewarding
chapter in L.A. theatre history.
¥ Prepare ye
the way: There's also a
transition happening at Actors' Co-op, where the colorfully named Pepper
Sweeney (just imagine him in a play with Beans Morocco) is stepping down as
artistic director to focus on his acting career and a new baby. Taking his
place is Gary Reed, who directed last year's hit revival of Godspell and was formerly associate artistic
director at Actors' Alley. The Co-op, a non-denominational Christian theatre
group based on the campus of Hollywood First Presbyterian Church, just
announced its 10th season, and one of its more secular ones, if I may say so: Little
Shop of Horrors (with
Co-op favorite John Allsopp, last year's Jesus in Godspell, as the sadistic dentist), Shaw's The
Devil's Disciple, All
My Sons, and Neil Simon's
Fools. Producing
director Nan McNamara will stay on.
¥ Son of Sam: Does Zoo District have it in for Sam
Shepard? After its air-tight, twisted-theme-park-ride production of Jeffrey
Dorchen's slightly gassy The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard--which strained to pin the
playwright/actor and the subject of his most famous role, astronaut Chuck
Yeager, with all that's wrong in American culture--it turns out that three of
Zoo District's loonier young tyros will mount Go True West, a deconstruction of that played-out
Shepard standard, in August at the Tamarind Theatre. Under the exacting
direction of Antony Sandoval, Joe Fria, Ben Simonetti, and Mami Arizono plan to
make Shepard's pie not only of Sam's rowdy sibling-rivalry play but also of the
regrettable tendency of L.A. actors to put it up as a showcase of their wares
to Hollywood suits. This ranks as irony, given the play's own ambivalence
toward Hollywood, but these pranksters are certain to take Go True West beyond irony into mind-bending absurdity.