Philip Carlson
The Actors Center Journal Vol 2 Num 1
Letter From The Editor
Nascent publication though we are, we interrupt our regularly scheduled format to bring you an issue setting forth what we feel is an urgent proposal for an American National Theatre.
The dream of a national theatre stole my acting teacher from me. I was twenty-one. I had just moved to New York. I had signed up with a voice teacher, a speech teacher, a dance teacher and an acting teacher—Paul Mann. Former member of The Group Theatre, teacher to Sidney Poitier, Lloyd Richards, Earl Gister, Barbara Loden (though Poitier was the only name that held any sway back then). Paul Mann. Genius. Maniac. He routinely blew our minds with his outrageous pronouncements, his uncanny insight into our psyches, the depth of his understanding. We were all learning so much. And we were becoming artists!
Until one day, Paul announced that he would be leaving us. Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead were forming a repertory company at the new Lincoln Center. It was to consist of the finest actors in the nation. Arthur Miller would be the playwright in residence and was writing the first production which was called After the Fall. Paul would be in charge of the training program. All members of the company would take class. There were to be no stars. Well, there would be stars, but no star behavior. Artists every one. It would be a few years before the permanent home at Lincoln Center would be completed, but meanwhile they were erecting a temporary quonset hut down near NYU, because everyone involved couldn’t wait to get started.
We were to come and see all the plays. We had a standing invitation to come backstage. Perhaps one day we might even be members of the company. Oh dear God, just imagine. Yes, we were losing our teacher, but the country was gaining a theatre. A National Theatre. To hear Paul talk, it sounded like heaven on earth. A dream come true. Of course, we hadn’t even known it was our dream—it was Paul’s. But it instantly became ours because of what he said it would mean: employment, self-respect, a chance to make art. Surely some of us would be a part of that company one day and then we would have Paul back as our teacher. I think we all thought we would be part of that company. Were we not all Paul’s children? And was not art democratic?
A couple of years later, Kazan and Whitehead were gone, and so was Paul. I was devastated. Our whole class was. Would this still be a place for us? The powers that be brought in some guys named Blau and Irving to run the place. They, in turn, brought along their own company. Would it be the same institution? It certainly stopped being a welcoming place for my friends and I to go to. Then it stopped being a very interesting place, period. The productions, my peers and I agreed, just weren’t on the same level. They were not, we felt sure, very good. And, as everyone knows, no one can spot a bad production faster than a young acting student. Though apparently we were not alone in our judgment, because a few years after that, Lincoln Center closed the doors on the whole enterprise. I never really understood the workings of why. I know that actors started coming and going from the company. Being jobbed in and leaving when better offers came along. I think free agency ruined the theatre long before it began corrupting sports. I would welcome hearing any theories about what happened from anyone who was around then.
Back then, I tried to understand the implications. Did this mean, with no national theatre in place, that the heart had been torn out of my chosen profession? I understood that I was bereft. I tried to stay in touch with Paul, who was pretty bereft himself. He had given up his acting studio to be a part of this dream. One day over lunch, I asked him, what was there now worth aspiring to? He was philosophical. He recommended aspiring to the next job. That’s what he was going to do. He asked me if I wanted to study with him again, but by then I was committed to the teacher Paul had recommended when he first left for Lincoln Center. Then Paul said something very interesting. He said that Kazan’s biggest mistake in choosing the original company had been in not choosing a company at all. He had chosen a cast for After the Fall.
This country has never seemed able to sustain anything resembling a repertory company for very long. Why is that? There was LeGallienne’s company and The Mercury Theatre, and The Group, which did change the world, for a time. And there was The Repertory Company at Lincoln Center. But nothing that has lasted. No tradition of repertory which is purported to be so enriching to its culture. Why not? Why can’t we sustain an operation like that? And is repertory enriching to the culture? Is there something in our culture which rejects the depths of revelation that theatre has to offer? (Oh my God, is that pretentious enough?) But is there?
In this issue of The Actors Center Journal, Michael Miller asks that question. His words are a combination of gauntlet and manifesto, but I will let him introduce his own thoughts. We intend to bring those thoughts to twenty people in the profession whose collective favorable response we feel could might actually bring about change. It never takes more than twenty people, right? To do anything. In the coming months, we will publish their responses. In the meantime, we welcome all thoughts. Please read. And please tell us what you think. And if you think you can help, tell us that.