AN ACTOR-DIRECTOR WHO RENDERS UNTO ‘CAESAR’

Theater is the art of perpetual presence, of now-ness. One of the most difficult tasks for the theater artist therefore has to be in bringing life to well-known classics as though they were really happening at the moment we see them.

Dakin Matthews, who is an actor (he plays in both “Hedda Gabler” and “The Real Thing,” the Mark Taper Forum’s repertory bill ending today at the Doolittle Theatre), is also a sometime director (he originated the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival and ran his own theater in Los Gatos) and one of those rare figures in the theater who, while preoccupied with performance and theatrical effect, also seriously takes into account a play’s broader historical and philosophical perspectives.

A case in point is Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” a play that is a staple of many high school literature courses, and has been done so often that everyone thinks he knows it. A new production opens at the Cassius Carter theater at the Old Globe in San Diego, and co-director Matthews discussed how he came to it and what he thinks of it.

“(Artistic Director) Jack O’Brien had been wanting to do ‘Julius Caesar’ himself for quite some time--he’s done a cut-down ‘Macbeth’ and seemed intrigued with the idea of intimate Shakespeare. But when it finally came time to do it, he changed his mind and called me. I had been in his original ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and toured with the Globe’s production of ‘Scapino.’ The day after his call, I got the offer from the Taper to do their rep season. I said, ‘Oh no, I can’t do both.’ But I sat down with my wife, Anne McNaughton, and we decided we could.

“The upshot is that I’d do the cutting and the dramaturgy and she’d primarily handle the day-to-day staging. This will be a modern-dress version, which emphasizes the language and personal relationships over the spectacle and the fights. It’s definitely experimental. We have doubling up, an interracial cast and in some cases women playing the roles of men.

“We hope people go away understanding more of Shakespeare’s political ideas, and his understanding of how difficult it is to integrate public life with a private, rational life, personal beliefs, personal love. The play is extraordinarily balanced, to say the least. Every 12 or 13 minutes you find yourself changing sides. I think Shakespeare was a monarchist who privately knew the values of humanism and republicanism. He was more of an observer than a theorist, but he realized what an extremely difficult art politics is. All politicians eventually have to take shortcuts. We see what happens when Brutus tries to act on principle purely--it can’t be done.

“ ‘Julius Caesar’ has a pagan context within Shakespeare’s Christian world. Each of his three Roman plays has a character express some reigning principle in his pagan world--Mark Antony was groin, Brutus was all head, Coriolanus was heart--in each, powerful men fail. It shows us how difficult it is for men to operate with power, no matter what the social circumstance is.”

The “Woman of Independent Means” team--or at least part of it--is back together again for Vince McKewin’s “The Carney Rod and Gun Club,” which opens Friday at the Victory in Burbank.

Hannis Stoddard III and James Williams Jr. are producers. Norman Cohen directs. Said Cohen: “Stoddard and Williams are young businessmen, and when ‘Woman of Independent Means’ worked out so well, they said, ‘If you have something you want to do, we’ll invest in it.’ ‘Sure,’ I thought to myself. You hear that all the time. But they’ve really come through.

“The play is a wonderful comedy about a group of World War II vets who live in a Maryland suburb and belong to a rod-and-gun club.

“You know, in Los Angeles and in New York, we tend to think we’re at the center of things, but it’s places like Carney that really shape the national opinion. It’s the blue-collar workers and the people like McKewin’s characters who elected Ronald Reagan. The handgun issue does come up, but this is more about how those returning vets, moving to the suburbs, putting their kids in Little League and hoping the kids would grow up to be like their parents, only with more opportunity, see life. This is before Vietnam, where many of their sons would go. But the play tells us that the ‘80s are very much a reflection of the ‘50s.”

Aside from ratiocination and aesthetic ideals, it’s just as well that a theater links up a play with an experienced director who flat-out loves it, and everything connected with it. Such is the case with Robert W. Goldsby, who directs the Richard Wilbur translation of Moliere’s “Tartuffe,” opening Thursday at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

“I come to Moliere emotionally,” Goldsby said. “Nobody, but nobody, has been as skilled at converting pain into laughter. When he did ‘The Imaginary Invalid,’ he was dying, spitting up real blood on stage, and everyone thought it was an effect, and laughed.

“ ‘Tartuffe’ came out of his dark period. It was banned for five years; no one then believed a playwright or an actor should get into questions of truth and piety. It shows us a family about to be destroyed by someone who uses power for sensual purposes. The humor is in how the father, a good man but a dupe, is so deeply obsessed by religious feeling that he can’t believe what his eyes and ears are telling him. He’s a moral man who’s morally blind.

“It took so long for ‘Tartuffe’ to get to the stage that everyone was panting for it, and it became the hit that made Moliere’s career more financially secure than any other play. We’ll give it its splendid frame, its powerful colors, theatrical entrances, its light and sound. He deserves it. No one ever went so far into the depth of human pain and confusion, and made it all so funny.”

Other openings for the week include, today: “Warren,” reopening at the Deja Vu; “Fat Chance” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse; Tuesday: Ensemble Studio Theatre’s festival of one-acts called “L.A. Marathon ‘86”; “Acme Material” at the Cast; Wednesday: “In Marc Martell’s Apartment, Mainly” at Theatre of N.O.T.E., “Jerker” at the Celebration Theatre.

“Richard II” opens at PCPA Thursday. “Comedy and Other Dangerous Stuff” also opens Thursday at Richmond Shepard’s, as does “Treats” at Burbank On Stage. Saturday, “Red, White and Rose” opens at the Gene Dynarski and “Beaver Tales” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.