Philip CarlsonThe Actors Center Journal Vol. 2, No. 3, July 2010
The Actors Center Journal, July 2010 Vol 2, Num 3
Phil’s Page
Here is The Actors Center Journal making all this noise about a National Theatre which would, of course, be a repertory theatre and after a little soul searching, I have had to confess to myself, and so to you, that I am not entirely clear on what a repertory theatre really is. Let alone why it might be such a desirable thing to have. The term ‘rep’ is thrown around so casually and always with an air of reverence, I don’t think I have ever taken the time to examine what it truly means. Miranda Richardson once said to me in my agent days, “Philip, I couldn’t possibly fly to Los Angeles to test for a film. I’m doing rep in Brighton.” I pointed out we were talking about a big role in a big movie. “But, darling,” she repeated as if talking to an idiot, “I’m in rep!” So rep was a good thing – to Miranda, if not to her agent in whose defense, it must be said, was only trying to make an honest buck. Do we even have rep (as Miranda would have defined it) on this side of the pond? There is Yale Rep and Berkeley Rep. But is what’s going on at either of those places really rep? I didn’t think so. But knowing what something is not is not the same thing as knowing what it is. So I looked it up in my Funk and Wagnalls.
Repertory Company:
A theatrical group having a repertoire of productions, each typically running for a few weeks, and usually having some acting personnel continuing from one production to the next.
Well, have we ever had a company like that in this country? Yes, I was so informed by Fran Dorn (see Teacher Interview this issue). It was exciting news, though it was history and has not happened since—that I am aware of. I was told recently by Michael Miller that the reason the stage is so deep and the flies so high at the Vivian Beaumont is that they were built to accommodate a revolving repertory of sets for a repertory company. Sadly, that enormous space has never—to date—been necessary. So there is the echo and room for the dream of a repertory company in this country but no repertory company. Why is that, I asked myself during my soul searching? Why is that and why is it such a terrible loss and is it a terrible loss? I have concluded that, yes, it is a terrible loss though perhaps it is not so much a loss as it is a hole. Let me explain.
As it happens, I have had in my life more than a passing acquaintance with repertory theatre. And like most things in my life, I never really noticed at the time. When I was a boy, my family had a (modest) summer house in Canada. Across the street from us and two houses down was a very large house which each summer was filled with actors from the barn theatre a few miles away called The Holloway Bay Playhouse. And the actors across the street were The Holloway Bay Players. Right across the street! They walked around their yard, in very little clothing, memorizing their lines, running scenes, smoking, drinking, occasionally throwing food on the barbecue, sleeping off hangovers in the noonday sun. And they were always very welcoming to me. I was eight. Then nine. Then I went away to summer camp and never saw any of them again.
I went to all their plays. They did eight each summer. I had favorites among the, of course. They were always the best actors, though I didn’t realize that at the time. I just liked them best. Sometimes one of my favorites had a tiny part which I could never understand but had to accept because what else could I do? It confused me, though. I felt they were being punished somehow. I remember asking about it once. The actor I asked shrugged in answer. He said something aswell which I do not remember but I remember the shrug. Funny to think of favorites. I liked them all. They were all fascinating. They had deep voices and they swore all the time and they always had fun.
By the time I stopped going to summer camp, when I was fifteen or so, The Holloway Bay Playhouse had closed. No more actors across the street. I would have to wait until I was twenty one and had moved to New York City to bask in the presence of those exotic creatures who smoked and drank with such relish and who continued to be welcoming to me, though now they had other reasons for being so friendly (and so did I). And then I became one of them, for a time. But I felt like a reporter—embedded—rather than one of them. But that’s another story.
I have written elsewhere in these pages of how my first acting teacher, Paul Mann, left teaching his private classes (left me) to be head of the training program at Lincoln Center Repertory Company which was being assembled and was to be run by Elia Kazan and Robert Whitehead. So, I guess, that was my next experience with repertory theatre. Again on the outside looking in. I went to their productions and would hear, somehow – from Paul, from chance encounters – about their rehearsals. And I sometimes went backstage. That wasn’t such a big deal actually. By then I had friends who were working on Broadway and backstage was no big thing to me. But the world backstage at The ANTA Washington Square Theatre (the Quonset hut built as a temporary home for The Repertory Company of Lincoln Center) didn’t feel so different from Broadway. It didn’t feel like The Holloway Bay Playhouse. Now that was a party. Granted, the stage of the Holloway Bay Playhouse had never been graced with the presence of Jason Robards Jr. or crazy Joe Weisman (as my second acting teacher used to call him) or Hal Holbrook. But what was going on in that wonderful Quonset hut, spine-tingling as it was, was not repertory. You couldn’t kid me. It was different stars being surrounded by many of the same (though by no means all) supporting players in different shows. I was beyond happy, don’t get me wrong, but it was the star power at work, not any particular joy among the people. Not the power of the theatre. I even got to go backstage whenever I wanted (so long as Paul was there) but backstage felt a little hierarchical, though I wouldn’t have used that word because I didn’t know it yet but that’s what it felt like. I remember Jason Robars’s dressing room. It wasn’t like backstage at the Holloway Bay Playhouse, I can tell you that.
My next experience with repertory was being a part of a rep company myself. It was my first acting job and I don’t think anyone involved with that experience would have defined it as repertory but that’s what it was. We were called the something- something players. It was a summer job and the company of five actors, plus the director, all lived in a house in the Catskills. We would run around to all the resorts up there – whichever one would have us on any given night – and put on one of three shows in our repertoire in exchange for a free dinner from the hotel and twenty-five dollars a week from the producer. Well, it was non-Equity. On nights when we didn’t have a booking, I think we ordered pizza. Tanya Berezin was the leading lady. Rob Thirkield was the character man. I was the leading man. I think it was the first paid acting job for all of us. (Later Rob and Tanya got married and founded Circle Rep with Marshall Mason. That wasn’t a real repertory company, either, but it was in spirit and, God knows, they gave work to many, many fine actors.) But that summer we performed, “A Shot in the Dark”, “A Taste of Honey” and “Night of the Iguana.” In the Catskills. As I recall, each play had been cut by the producer to run an hour and a half. We traveled with our own scenery which naturally we put up ourselves before our free dinner. We were always given a table somewhere off the main dining room, away from the paying guests. Dinner was always, no matter what hotel, five different kinds of chicken or brisket. And that was fine. We were in heaven. We were acting.
My next—and I believe last—brush with repertory was seeing The Moscow Art Theatre a few years later at City Center. They did “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard” in rep. It must have been the mid 60′s sometime. I doubt it was the entire company of The Moscow Art Theatre but it was enough of them to mount two production with the full casts of those gorgeous plays. With overlaps in the casting, of course. The overlaps were the whole point to me. Look at this one be that character and then look at him be that character. And look at the difference. It was always profound. They were Russians and they were very, very good. But the most impressive thing to me was that there were two actors in the company who had achieved the rank of People’s Actor. There were only five such actors in the U.S.S.R. Being a People’s Actor was the highest honor to which a Russian actor might aspire. I suppose it was like being a star, odious as such an observation might be. And in “The Cherry Orchard”, the two People’s Actors who had crossed the waters to perform for us were each cast in two of the smallest parts. One was Firs, the butler. And he was superb. I still remember him standing by the foot of the stairs, his entire life passing before him – and us – as the curtain fell. But the other one. Ah, the other one. He was the Homeless Man. He had only a few lines at the picnic in Act Two. But he was all of starving Russia. When he came onstage, the earth moved. He was riveting. You could smell him. It was one of the finest performances I have ever seen and it couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes in its entirety. And he was a People’s Actor! I don’t know whether I was more enthralled with the performance or by the fact that one of the two most important actors in the company had deigned to perform it. I mean, he was a star. And stars were stars.
They got the best parts and the best money and the best billing. Didn’t they? Well, maybe not in rep and not at The Moscow Art Theatre. And maybe only at a place like The Moscow Art Theatre, a true repertory company, could such a choice be made. They have so many fine actors and why not have one of their finest play a small part? Did Chekhov lavish any less skill on the Homeless Man than he did on Ranyevskaya? I don’t think so. What not let a great actor loose on a small part and see what depths might be plumbed? Remember “Around the World in 80 Days”? After you got over the novelty of seeing all those stars in tiny roles, it began to dawn on you that they were really good actors. I still remember Marlene Dietrich’s two minutes on the screen. Think of the cast of that film as a repertory company! OMG, I believe is the expression.
So I have had close encounters with repertory theatre though I would describe these encounters as glancing, scattershot, short-lived, much like the life of repertory theatre in America itself. All my life I have needed the theatre much more than it has needed me. I took the crumbs that it offered and feasted on them because I was starving and they fed me. But they were few and far between. The truth is that repertory theatre has never been a part of this culture. It has always felt more like medicine than any sort of pleasurable undertaking. Even the glory days of regional theatre always felt a bit Channel Thirteeny—good for you but filled with no particular joy. Star-centered theatre has always been around but rep? Not really. Scattershot, as I said. It was never something we felt we needed—not like baseball or even the opera. Or the symphony. Have you ever watched the audiences at Carnegie Hall or Avery Fisher? They are rapt. They are loving it. And what about the people in the seats at The Met? They are all in tears.
Only the theatre draws this dutiful, docile crowd who has learned to arrive with no great expectations other than to be able to afterwards tell their friends they saw a Broadway show or used their season tickets at one or the more prestigious non-profits and aren’t they good, high-minded folks to have done so? They have bought bragging rights, not balm.
I confess that when I was a kid I never noticed other people’s lack of pleasure in play-going because I was having such a terrific time myself. Life-sustaining would not be too strong to describe the time I spent inside theatres. That myopia continued into adulthood. At the curtain call of “A Chorus Line” the first time I saw it at the Public, the couple next to me leaned over and asked how many friends I had in the cast. “None,” I replied. “Why?” “During the show,” the husband said, “we thought you were about to bust a gut.” He was right. I had just spent two hours in heaven. Though maybe that’s not an illuminating example. “A Chorus Line” touched a lot of people. But it touched me and in the end, I was sustained in my life by individual performances and Broadway hits which I came across randomly but were not a part of the fabric of my life. The theatre is not a part of the fabric of anyone’s life in this country. Except for those of us who are lucky enough to labor in its service. No, I mean the audience. There is no audience, no permanent audience, no indigenous group of people who feel that theatre is a birthright, something necessary to the understanding and enjoyment of life. I don’t blame that audience. How can you miss what you have never had? A couple of decades ago, Lillian Hellman wrote an article for Playbill about the Broadway audience. It was called “Who Are These People?” First of all, she wanted to know, where were the young people? The audiences she saw were tired, bored, overly coiffed, rude, coughing and old. Were these people who were even looking for a good time? She didn’t hold out much hope for that audience or the theatre they dragged themselves to see. I recently learned that Montenegro has a National Theatre with over 100 actors on their year round payroll? Montenegro! I don’t even know where it is. But they have a National Theatre. What’s wrong with us?
Which brings me to a possible theory about why rep doesn’t work in this country. I have just finished the most enjoyable and enlightening book called “Free for All”. It’s an oral history of Joseph Papp and The Public Theatre stunningly put together by Kenneth Turan from interviews with over 160 people. Near the end there is a quote from that most mischievous and sage actor and writer Wallace Shawn. He says: It was really only when my play ["Aunt Dan and Lemon"] opened that I think I actually understood that there was no theatre, that theatre is a hobby and an amateur activity, something that certain people who have a certain character defect enjoy doing together, for pleasure. It isn’t really an institution in American society, as I had imagined it to be.