BACKSTAGE WITH GORDON DAVIDSON : Rehearsing for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ With the Artistic Director of the Mark Taper Forum

DURING THE PAST 20 years, Gordon Davidson has done more than anyone to produce significant home-grown theater in Los Angeles. As artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, Davidson has produced 300 plays, directed 30 more, caused controversy, collected awards and raised money, all with an eye toward creating a theatrical voice for the city.

Now Davidson has entered a new arena--directing his first fully staged opera in Los Angeles, Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which opens Tuesday at the Wiltern Theatre. The production will marry the dramatic talents of the 54-year-old Davidson with the vitality of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, a feisty, 2-year-old troupe that is trying to follow the Taper’s lead and establish a dynamic local operatic voice.

During one typical week last month, Davidson alternated between producing a Sam Shepard play at the Taper, presenting Spalding Gray at the Taper, Too, and producing “Darlinghissima” at the Itchey Foot Literary Cabaret. But most of his attention was focused on the opera, which challenged a different aspect of his creativity.

ON THE FIRST day of rehearsals for the opera, Davidson arrives at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s Rehearsal Room No. 4 joking about the dog he has to cast. “You want to find an un -frisky dog? Then find a boring person and ask him if he has a dog,” he cracks. His gangly posture and chipped-tooth grin make him look like a gray-haired Tom Sawyer.

His mood is lighthearted, but the joke masks a serious concern. As a director of plays, Davidson is accustomed to working with trained and experienced actors. But opera singers concentrate on their voices; often they have less acting experience, and they can sometimes seem wooden on stage. Davidson must, in four weeks, find a way to teach the singers to hum with life as well as melody.

So Davidson has devised a plan. Few of the singers have read the play on which Britten’s opera is based. Rather than delivering a pedantic lecture, he has called them together to read the play aloud. “I want them to experience Shakespeare,” he says.

Most of the singers wear jeans, T-shirts and running shoes. Cans of Diet Coke dot the table. “This is not a test of your ability to read Shakespeare,” Davidson says, his voice soothing and homey. “We’re reading the play to go on a journey together and share it with each other.” To put the singers at ease, Davidson joins in, taking the part of Egeus, the father of Hermia, one of the lead characters. He races through his lines, barely pausing for breath.

But Angelique Burzynski, the singer playing Helena, reads mournfully: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the heart.” Soon others start to loosen up, and Alice Baker, who plays Hermia, is emphasizing her feelings by stamping her high heels. Two hours later, after the final line is read, there’s a silence, then everybody claps. The singers mill about, reluctant to leave.

“I come off too whiny in the play. I like myself better in the opera,” one says.

“I’m not sure I understand my motivation,” says another.

Davidson stands back, smiling. His

singers are beginning to think like actors.

THE RESTAURANT’S pastel walls are softly lit, and Vivaldi plays in counterpoint to the silver clinks of refined dining. Davidson is rushing through a salad on his 45-minute dinner break before plunging into Sam Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” which is in previews at the Taper. Although Davidson is producing--not directing--he will study tonight’s 3-hour-and-20-minute performance, searching for ways to shorten it. So far today, he has worked with the opera’s conductor, solved some costume design problems (if the fairies have wings, how can they roll around on the floor?), “experienced” Shakespeare with the singers and auditioned actors for another Taper play, “Made in Bangkok.”

This is the first time today that Davidson has not been surrounded by a crowd. He’s finished his glass of wine. It is the perfect moment for him to reveal his personal and secret vision of the opera.

“I don’t have a vision,” he says.

He smiles. “I release my vision. My dream is to have no dream and to stay open and see what happens. I’m a collaborative director. It’s sort of like being a good parent: You sit back and let your children go.” He adds a look of studied sincerity. “And watching to see the magic they perform is one of my most immeasurable joys.”

Davidson says there aren’t many auteur directors in the theater because of the primacy of the playwright. But does that mean theatrical directors feel comfortable delegating their reputation to their collaborators? He waves his hand. “I don’t care about my reputation.”

A double espresso later, Davidson is off to the Taper. The maitre d’ tells him to have a good evening. Even though he is in a rush, Davidson stops and asks the maitre d’ his name. Then he offers his hand: “I’m Gordon Davidson, director of the Mark Taper Forum.”

DAVIDSON SWITCHED from an engineering major to a theater-arts major in his third year at Cornell University. What is surprising is that he didn’t switch sooner: His father, Joseph, whom he adored, was a professor of theater arts and a director at Brooklyn College. “Every piece of furniture we had in our house was a prop from some play. And nothing matched,” says Davidson.

His pursuit of engineering was not rebellion: “I had nothing to rebel against. No one in my family was domineering. They were very warm, very supportive. Especially my father; he was loose and easygoing, a creative man.”

When Davidson completed his master’s in theater at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a professor recommended him for a job with the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn., where he came under the tutelage of John Houseman. In 1966, Houseman lured Davidson and his young family to the artistic hinterlands of Los Angeles, where Davidson took a position with the UCLA Professional Theatre Group. Two years later, he became the first artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, a 750-seat experimental theater attached to the well-funded Music Center.

Once here, Davidson launched a crusade to develop a local theater troupe that would speak with the city’s own voice. “The Taper brought professional theater to Los Angeles, and its presence was one of the seminal events in the development of contemporary theater in this town,” says Bill Bushnell, artistic producing director of the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Over the years, Davidson has built his theater by encouraging players to take risks, acting both as a catalyst and fine-tuner for their artistic visions. “He doesn’t impose his own ideas on a project,” says Jack Viertel, a former Herald Examiner theater critic who served for two years as the Taper’s resident dramaturge. “He makes a place for a writer’s vision to be born.”

ON THE THIRD day, a magical forest dominates the rehearsal room: Its gnarled tree is made of three ladders; staircases leading nowhere are the hills, and wooden crates form the grassy bluff. Other greenery is suggested by ragged chunks of foam rubber that look like molars left out for a giant tooth fairy.

Davidson is about to meet and begin staging the movements of 10 children from the Los Angeles Children’s Choir who will play the forest fairies. He knows that they can sing. But can they move and act--and keep their eyes on the conductor at the same time? He and the choreographer are about to find out.

“You will hear Gordon say this a lot,” says choreographer Larry Hyman: “ ‘This is a journey.’ We have certain maps but we don’t know where we’re going. This can be scary because opera is so expensive to produce. But if we don’t leave things open, there’s no room for anything miraculous to happen, and that’s what working with Gordon is all about.”

When the children arrive, Davidson removes his jacket, rolls up his sleeves and shakes hands with each of them. “I’m the director, and I run the Mark Taper Forum, which is that little round building over there, and I’m excited to be involved with you.”

He sits on the floor with the kids, holding in his palm a 6-inch model of the forest set. “You see,” he says in a spooky whisper, “we are in a magical forest. And when I say magical, I don’t mean poof !” He lowers his voice. “I mean-- mysterious. “

Davidson stands up but he slouches, as if he could shrink to the children’s size and thus reassure them that he is not an authority figure. He explains where they will make their entrances.

They come in stiffly, like a singing drill team. They look awful, but Davidson says, “That’s terrific,” holding back criticism much as a good psychotherapist would. He grabs some plastic cups that are sitting next to the coffee maker. “You all have a mission,” he says, passing out cups. “You’re collecting things in the forest.” He pauses to think. “Forest things,” he adds.

The children enter again, bending to the floor and reaching up. But they still have that robot look. “That’s good,” Davidson says. “Now really concentrate on what you’re gathering. The more your imagination is working, the more we’ll understand what you’re doing.”

They enter again, this time chasing imaginary butterflies, stubbing their toes and getting stung by make-believe bees. He places the fairies throughout the “forest” so they’re not all bunched up like a barbershop quartet when they sing. “That’s terrific,” he says, this time meaning it. Five minutes have passed since he started working with them.

WITH ONLY A few minutes before curtain of the Sam Shepard play, Davidson finishes another hasty restaurant meal. Again he mentions the collaborative process. “I could say to the singers, ‘Look, this is the way I want it done. Please do it, and don’t argue with me.’ But what happens when you get dogmatic with creative people is that they retreat inside and say”--his voice turns singsongy--” ’What would you like, maestro? Would you like me to move over here?’

“When I work with actors I make sure they know it’s all right for them to make mistakes. I’m not judgmental, and I make it very clear that I’m extremely interested in what their own personalities will bring to the scene.”

A well-dressed couple Davidson knows passes the table. “Coming to the theater?” he asks. They nod. “Good,” booms the impresario.