THEATER SPACE MAKES THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE

“What we’re looking for is not to make a theater but a laboratory. . . . We want to believe we’re going to work harder and work deeper.”

--Robyn Hunt

Some of them dream of making it big. More of them dream of not going under. Sometimes their work can be seen in legitimate theaters. More often, you have to seek it out in old warehouses, factories and abandoned bars. They are San Diego’s homeless theater companies, the gypsies with shoestring budgets looking for permanent spaces to call their own.

Ah, space. The magic word. To a theater company, space is that most precious of commodities. In a pinch, it can be the streets. But more practically, a space is any area where a stage can be built, lights can be hung and chairs can be set up.

The first space the San Diego Public Theatre had was the old Wing Cafe in Golden Hill. Founders and directors Steve Pearson and Robyn Hunt fit 38 seats in it. They produced four shows there until they were ready for something bigger and better--the Old Candy Factory on 8th and K, which they transformed into a theater with 180 seats.

The first home of Carlos X. Pina’s Progressive Stage Company was an old rug factory on 4th Avenue. He built dressing rooms, blacked out the windows and set up lights. Ollie Nash’s Aleph Company once used an abandoned bar on Park Boulevard and Madison Avenue for a production. It seemed reasonable. The play, Kenneth Bernard’s “Night Club,” was supposed to take place in a bar. Besides, the location was cheap.

Ah, cheap. Another word that makes the homeless theater companies misty-eyed. And no wonder. It’s hard for any new business to pay the rent. It’s even harder when you’re a theater business and you’re not trying to make money as much as “art.”

And art, for most of them, is a real--not abstract--concern. Pearson and Hunt lost their space at the Old Candy Factory in 1985 when they couldn’t pay the rent. For the past two years, they’ve been managing the successful Bowery Theatre in the absence of the Bowery’s founder, Kim McCallum. Now, McCallum is back and Pearson and Hunt are ready to revive their Public Theatre again. Have they decided to be more commercial this time around? Hardly.

According to Hunt, “We became a little disenchanted with commercial theater. You do the same things over and over again. You get better at being quick. . . . What we’re looking for is not to make a theater but a laboratory. . . . We want to believe we’re going to work harder and work deeper.”

Hunt’s and Pearson’s tastes are fairly eclectic. They have produced works by Doris Fo, Athol Fugard, Dylan Thomas and Bertolt Brecht. Nash also favors challenging work. He takes pride in advertising that his Aleph Company produces “high-quality theater fare of a non-commercial nature.” That can mean anything from a modernization of “Antigone” to Slawomi Mrozek’s “Yatzlav” and Georg Buchner’s “Woyzeck.”

The NewWorks Theater, founded by Jack Barefield and directed by Tim Reilly, specializes in new works by San Diego playwrights and a “Play by Play” series that features classic works explained for junior high school and high school students. Patricia Elmore established the San Diego Actor’s Theater to showcase the work of Pulitzer-Prize winning playwrights. Her most recent production, Beth Henley’s “The Miss Firecracker Contest,” just ended a run at the Bowery Theatre.

Pina’s Progressive Stage Company has a goal of including more minority representation. “We’ve got the busiest border in the country,” Pina said. “I want to see American plays translated into Spanish and Mexican plays translated into English.”

Then there is Luke Theodore Morrison, whose Center for Theatre Science and Research is an extension of his involvement with the politically conscious Living Theater founded in 1947 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina.

During the McCarthy era, members of the Living Theater were sometimes jailed for their radical views. Morrison wants to keep that feisty brand of work alive. His theater ranges from street demonstrations, such as “Five Public Acts,” in which he disseminated AIDS information around town, to his production of Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” which he describes as “not entertaining or enjoyable--that’s not the aim of this group.” Morrison is bringing “Lewd Acts in Public Places” to Sushi on June 11-14.

Of course, if you press Morrison, or people in any of these companies, they will tell you that they would love big audiences. They just don’t expect them--yet. Most of them see their role as being the non-theatergoer’s first introduction to theater.

At its inception, “Play by Play” was free; now it costs $1. The price of adult theater is also lower than the going rate. When Morrison takes his work to the streets, it’s free. When Pina stages his work, he may charge $4 or $5. Pina sees the low cost of his tickets as helping, not hurting, the bigger theaters.

“I’m proud that a lot of people who saw my plays saw their first plays ever. You make it accessible, affordable. You get them hooked. . . . Ultimately, that benefits bigger theaters.”

But the hidden costs of being affordable is not making much money. Most of the people in these companies have second jobs that support their theater habits. Hunt and Pearson teach at UC San Diego; Pina and Reilly do carpentry work. Elmore feels that paying people is an important part of being professional. “So,” she said ruefully, “everyone got paid (in “Firecracker”) except me.”

Elmore wishes she could have a longer run at the Bowery, but the Bowery is staging its own show in early June. As Elmore looks for a new temporary space, she, like the other small companies, is back in a familiar limbo--a world of fund raising, of applying for grants that never quite meet operating budgets, of coming up with creative solutions for their space problems--like proposing that the city offer business incentives to open closed warehouses at subsidized rates or finance small affordable theaters of less than 200 seats.

They investigate consortiums. They dream of patrons. But mostly, they dream of continuing to exist. And they keep up their hunt for the ultimate stamp of legitimacy--a permanent space of their own.