BACK STAGE WEST

June 28, 2001  

        

THE WICKED STAGE

 

by Rob Kendt

 

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.