Monday, June 29, 1998
Center Stage
THEATER: Struggling to create a theater scene in the middle of a film-dominated city, Los Angeles has defined its style and must now attract the right caliber of actors and directors to launch a revolution
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The stage at Los Angeles' Schubert Theatre in November 1997 is bare, save two old-fashioned staircases which support the cast of "Ragtime" every Tuesday through Sunday. This is Monday, though, and the venue is playing host to the fourth annual Ovation Awards. The scene is suspiciously void of Tony-style show stoppers and Oscar-esque glitz.
But what at first sounds bleak is, in fact, rather cozy. To the well-trained theater detective, a second look around reveals the unthinkable: a determined, distinct theater scene festering quietly in the heart of Hollywood.
Exhibit A: A few years ago, there was no comparable award for local productions. The crowd's hollers and cheers suggest that an Ovation (an Ovie? The prize is still too new to have a familiar nickname) is an honor.
The plethora of inside jokes and inter-troupe support suggests that this is a tight-knit group. After all, the cast and crew of any given play may co-habit the stage for up to eight shows a week, not counting creative and rehearsal time prior to the run.
Exhibit B: Recall the "Ragtime" accessories. Before the lavish musical took home four Tonys, it played for over six months at the Schubert, which hosted the American premiere. This is big news in a city whose most coveted theater space typically goes to touring productions that opened on Broadway over a year ago. Theater-hungry Angelenos must clamor to see large plays and musicals in the short time (as little as a week or two) they touch down at the Ahmanson, Schubert, Pantages or Wilshire theaters.
Yet sizable productions have increasingly been testing the theatrical waters off-off-off Broadway. The revival of 1981's motown musical "Dreamgirls" toured the country, with an L.A. run in December before hitting Broadway in the spring. "Fosse," based on the work of the famous director/choreographer, will have its L.A. premiere in the fall, again prior to Broadway.
"Ragtime" gunned to endear itself to Los Angeles right from the start, posting banners and staging press events long before opening night, and most importantly, used the city's somewhat untapped resources.
"We want to try to cast the show in its entirety, if possible, from the Los Angeles community in which there are so many superb actors," producer Garth Drabinsky told reporters in February, 1997. This goal was realized only in part, casting Toronto star Brian Stokes Mitchell as Coalhouse. Yet the show continued even after Mitchell departed for Broadway and such Los Angeles-based actors as John Rubinstein played other lead roles.
Exhibit C: Travel around the corner from the Schubert and down Santa Monica Boulevard. Shortly after the Beverly Hills posh gives way to neon signs and rainbow-striped flags, small theaters begin to line the street. The majority seat under 99 viewers; many can't afford to pay their actors; some are so scrunched between other businesses that a certain speakeasy-style pride emerges from just finding them.
But the eastern stretches of the boulevard have nevertheless garnered the unofficial title of "Theater Row." And it is here that Los Angeles' most interesting theater resides. "Interesting" is the intentionally ambiguous key word. Amateurish productions dabble in both the trite and the bizarre, and many dismiss the casts of such shows as actors who can't get a film or television gig.
"There's ... a lot of work that's done purely to get an agent, purely to get a manager. To write stuff so you can get a sitcom job," says UCLA alum Christopher Lore, who recently produced "A Beautiful Country" in Chinatown, in addition to his first film, a short called "Clowns."
This puts him in the surprisingly common position of artists who reside in Los Angeles and see the benefits and drawbacks of both media. On the downside, Lore says, "This is an industry town. As opposed to Detroit, where it's cars, it's 'The Biz.'"
Film and television casting directors don't always grant theater actors the respect that similar resumes might encounter in New York.
Actor Brent Davin Vance, who toured in "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and "Rent," finds that being an ensemble member rather than a headliner holds him back.
"I've been trying to establish a career here as far as getting a television and commercial agent. And that is like grinding teeth," Vance laments. "In L.A., I find the theater community and the agents (are only) interested in who's ("Rent" leads) Mimi and Roger."
The "back-burner" attitude toward theater seems to have a trickle-down effect. New York periodicals give their initial pages to theater listings and reviews, while L.A. counterparts are flooded with film stories. Audiences seem to follow suit and in booming Los Angeles, theater faces stiff competition.
"We've got the Lakers and the Clippers and the Kings - and the Bruins, for God's sake!" Lore says. "Vying for someone's entertainment dollar is a tough business."
Yet in New York, theater manages to thrive in spite of the Knicks and the Mets, so why not here? More and more, audiences seem to be asking this, as are publications that arguably reflect their opinions. Entertainment Weekly recently added a theater section; Los Angeles Magazine lists theater events even if it rarely features them; Buzz (the self-proclaimed "Talk of Los Angeles") published a short but indicative article about Los Angeles's growing "other" industry last year.
What Los Angeles cannot be, however, is Broadway II. Rather than try to replicate the Great White Way or edge out the film industry (two tasks equally laughable in their impossibility), Los Angles is sculpting its own dynamic and style.
Artistically, this may mean adapting the film industry's taste for realism and understatement for the stage. Actor Reggie Lee, who has performed in "Carousel" and "Miss Saigon" on Broadway and with the Los Angeles-based East West Players, sees this difference between the two coasts.
"In L.A., because of the film and television aspect, we work more towards reality," Lee says. "In New York I see these big huge 'theater'-trained actors doing everything they can to project out to the house ... Why do you go to the theater? To experience and to feel what those characters are feeling.
"Even Shakespeare here is done very realistically. I get it finally. You do Shakespeare and you don't think about iambic pentameter and this kind of stuff. It's like 'Oh, that's what he means.'"
This is not to say that theater should be "dumbed down" for the "Godzilla" crowd, although this is potentially a valid accusation. Though a recent L.A. Weekly cover story lauded playwright Justin Tanner's unsung talents, it also hinted that much of his writing had a sitcom feel that wouldn't hold up in other cities.
Logistically, bringing theater to L.A. means making the best of its decentralized sprawl. Though Santa Monica Boulevard may be a car-less Bruin's best bet, small theater venues sprout ambitiously in the movie studio forest of North Hollywood. San Diego's midsize La Jolla Playhouse offers original productions from big names. Costa Mesa in Orange County has its Center for the Performing Arts and South Coast Repertory.
Actor Ron Orbach, currently starring in "Chicago" at the Ahmanson, is on the board of directors for the Riverside Repertory Theater, scheduled to open by fall 1999.
"If you are a theater person, you find yourself auditioning for sitcoms and doing little jobs in film. They may pay well, but they don't satisfy one's creative yearnings. So I'm excited about getting in the ground floor of a new theater that will hopefully make some noise," Orbach says.
Interestingly enough, those in the aforementioned "biz" may agree.
Exhibit D: Ovation Award presenters included Garry Marshall, Joanna Gleason, Danny Glover and Rita Moreno.
If theater is a stepping stone to film, those who've made good in Hollywood don't mind taking a step "backwards". In fact, they are frequently nostalgic for it.
"On stage there's always more of a cerebral magic. The audience goes in saying, 'Do something to me.' They suspend belief right at the door," says actor Morgan Freeman. "There are lots of things that would take me back."
UCLA alum and theater director Kent Gash, whose "Harriet's Return" played at the Geffen this winter, confirms, "I'd get killed in this town for saying it, but I think some of the best actors we have are actors who trained in theater and came to film later."
Many screen personalities use their earnings to finance their first love, both as performers and as patrons, in the case of Annette Bening and Bill Pullman, whose names grace the playbills of Los Angeles's renown Actor's Gang.
So the question remains: Will L.A. artists make time for theater? If they do, will local audiences come through for them?
Ron Orbach is cautiously confidant. "Los Angeles is my home now. I'm hoping this will become a theatrical artistic home as well."
Orbach and his colleagues are doing their best to realize this dream. Viewers can do their part by attending plays on campus and reading Laurie Winer's reviews before Kenneth Turan's. And perhaps they'll become Exhibit E themselves. Photo courtesy of Carol Rosegg
From left: Kimberly Jajuan, Roz White, La Tanya Hall and Tonya Dixon star in the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls" about three women who rise to the top of the musical charts.