Spano Rides a ‘Buffalo’ on Quest for His Spiritual Side

Joe Spano was recalling how the current Gnu Theatre production of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” in which he plays a nearly witless street tough named Teach, was directly related to a Mamet-written episode of “Hill Street Blues” (he played Lt. Henry Goldblume in the seven-year series). It was a story of the hazards of the stage trade.

“David’s ‘Hill Street’ script was the best one in seven years for me,” he began. “It was my largest part, my most emotionally wide-ranging episode. We met during filming, and a year later he called to tell me that his play ‘Edmond’ was being planned for an L.A. production, and would I want the role. After reading it, I deeply wanted to do it, but no theaters around here did. They were put off by its dark tone, and that the Odyssey Theatre had had such a success with it during the Olympic Arts Festival.”

The theaters passing on “Edmond” included the Gnu, run by director Jeff Seymour. Seymour suggested to Spano, however, that they do “American Buffalo,” which hadn’t been done locally in more than 10 years.

“At first, I resisted Jeff’s idea. ‘Edmond’ was the only thing on my mind. Then I caught myself,” Spano reflected. “‘This is just what you wanted, Joe,’ I thought. ‘You want to be in positions where you don’t quite know what to do next, in which there’s some risk.’ I had long ago made this commitment to myself that I wouldn’t be trapped in the L.A. casting syndrome, which slots the actor into a familiar category as reusable product.”

Spano rethought his priorities, becoming so certain that “American Buffalo” was the right play to do that he persuaded Mamet and argued against other suggested titles.

The episode illustrates how Spano moves on what he calls his “path” as an actor.

“What’s my personal path? It means growing up, trying to find out what it means to be a man, how being a man relates to being in society, finding my spiritual side and the side that helps me survive without compromising principles.”

A tall order. Spano has found many ways to fulfill it since “Hill Street Blues” went off the air. He’s a member of L.A. Classic Theatre Works, whose radio productions of Eric Bentley’s McCarthy-era play, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?” and Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” are being rebroadcast over KCRW-FM (89.9) starting tonight at 7 p.m.

Last year he ventured to South Coast Repertory for Paul Marcus’ deconstructive staging of Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal.” Although Spano’s Joseph Surface has received a nomination in outstanding lead performance from the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle, he “wasn’t sure that what Paul wanted would work. None of the text or basic action was changed, but he deliberately put anachronisms in it. It never occurred to me that this show would have its own stage time and reality.

“But every good production of every good play has that in a way. You see that in John Steppling’s plays, and in David’s (Mamet) plays. They’re not Reality. They’re this Reality. I just have to keep re-learning that as an actor.”

Spano, not one fond of the elite classical training academy, learned his art at UC Berkeley during the activist mid-’60s, “when I’d be in the student union coughing from tear gas, or standing under a tree when police buckshot whizzed by the leaves above my head.

“My drama friends felt that our art was directly linking up with the politics and society. We did one of the first anti-war plays anywhere. We took that energy with us when some of us founded the Berkeley Rep” in 1968 with director Michael Leibert, the man with the guiding vision--and the money.

From obscure Brecht (“The Calendar Tales”) to improv with the group the Wing to acting and directing at the Berkeley Rep, Spano made a point of not repeating himself. “But there came a time when it was right for my personal growth--including being able to support myself--to leave for L.A. My friends chose to stay.”

He thinks he’s found an ideal performing space at the 60-seat Gnu, where with director Seymour’s ability to “direct for the story, his greatest strength” and the intimate environs, he can act “subtly. We (co-stars Richard Costanzo and David Wolf, newly replacing Dennis Christopher as Bobby) can throw things away and the audience can catch them. It’s close to film acting, and it feels truer than the large gestures you need in a bigger house.”