N. Y. Critic Flings Barbs at S. D. Theater Offerings

He came, he saw, he grumbled. John Simon, controversial theater critic for New York magazine, came to town last week for a conference at the U.S. Grant Hotel put on by the Assn. for Theater in Higher Education (ATHE).

And, if the acerbic wit’s words match his immediate reaction to the shows he saw, he’ll ruffle more than a few feathers when his review of San Diego theater pops up in an upcoming issue of New York.

In conversations before and after a lecture last Saturday, Simon pooh-poohed a trio of well-received local shows--”Six Women with Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want to Know” (at the San Diego Rep), “Coriolanus” (Old Globe) and “Lulu” (La Jolla Playhouse).

He saved his most potent venom for the ATHE speech, in which he targeted non-traditional casting and adaptations of classics that tamper with Shakespeare’s original story and language.

Non-traditional casting frequently challenges historical precedent, such as mixing blacks, whites and Latinos in such Shakespearean classics as “Coriolanus” and “Timon of Athens,” two of this season’s offerings at the Old Globe. The same can be said for last season’s “The Tempest,” at the La Jolla Playhouse and “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream” at the San Diego Rep.

Later, Simon blasted director John Hirsch’s contemporary version of “Coriolanus” for changing some of Shakespeare’s language, and he criticized the liberties taken by translator Roger Downey in adapting Frank Wedekind’s “Lulu.” As for “Six Women,” which is now San Diego’s longest running show, Simon said he is simply bewildered by its success.

Simon is expert at provoking conversation, challenging opinions, making listeners decide what they really think and feel. But when the dust of all arguments had cleared, only one conclusion seemed apparent. Non-traditional casting and new adaptations are here to stay, at least in local theater.

When told that Simon expressed concern that somewhere down the non-traditional casting road, “We’ll soon have wheelchair actors playing Romeo,” Thomas Hall, managing director of the Old Globe said, “Why not? If you find a great actor who is wheelchair-bound, I don’t think that should prevent anyone from doing that role.”

Hall’s point of view stands not only for the Old Globe, he said, but for the League of Regional Theaters, which he heads as president.

“We’re committed as a league to promoting cross-cultural casting. And what that means to us is that in any instance where race, creed, color or sex is not germane to the character of the play, anyone who is qualified should play the role. In Juliet’s case (in ‘Romeo and Juliet’) there is nothing germane about race. We have mixed marriages in the world today.

“The world is filled with multiethnic people and we believe strongly that that should be reflected on our stages. We feel that art should lead the way to breaking down prejudice in terms of ethnic origins.”

As for updating the classics, Old Globe officials are so pleased by Hirsch’s work with “Coriolanus” that they are already negotiating with him to do a new work for the spring or summer season. Two of the four projects they’re discussing involve works by Shakespeare. And if some of the archaic language has been changed, Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe, sees it as a plus that increases comprehensibility.

“John Simon has gotten his name in publications by making strong statements,” O’Brien said. “He’s a gadfly and a brilliant one. But cross-cultural casting is not something Mr. Simon need have an opinion about because it is a fact of life. It is completely accepted in opera and ballet. I look for actors, not nationalities or races.”

Similarly, the biggest problem Sam Woodhouse, producing director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre, has with non-traditional casting is that it is not yet as much a fact of life as he would like it to be.

“I think non-traditional casting is an essential step that must happen to reflect the growing cultural diversity of America. But one has to work hard to make it happen. You can’t just put an audition notice out and expect a lot of non-traditional options. If you want to cast a woman in a man’s role, you have to go out and solicit auditions.”

Woodhouse described one of the nicest moments in the Rep’s 1978 “A Christmas Carol” as the scene in which Whoopi Goldberg, then a local actress, played opposite a white actor as her husband.

“There’s a moment of surprise and acknowledgement on the part of the audience and after that the question is, ‘Does the scene work?’ Talent and the ability to do the role well are the key casting considerations. We’re planning to commit a lot more energy to (non-traditional casting) in the future.”

Josefina Lopez, one of the winners of the California Young Playwrights Project at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre last year, had a closed reading of her winning play, “Simply Maria or the American Dream” scheduled for Thursday at the South Coast Repertory Theatre. The autobiographically drawn play, one of six chosen from more than 80 that were submitted to SCR’s Hispanic Playwrights Project, marks a journey in the American dream for 19-year-old Lopez.

Because of the United States’ amnesty program, the Los Angeles teen-ager has finally obtained a green card. And thanks to a number of scholarships, including $2,000 from San Diego’s Alba 80 Society and a monthly stipend of $150 from an anonymous San Diego donor that began in January, she is on her way to becoming the first in her 10-person family to go to college. She starts at New York University in the fall.

“I’m so proud of myself for not giving up,” she said. “I said I’m going to college (no matter what). Then I started asking people if they knew anyone who had money for a poor Hispanic woman who has talent. People gave me advice and phone numbers but no money. At one point I started to cry. But I kept going. And then I found there is money.”