Theatre du Soleil Project: Need Hangar, Will Travel

Le Theatre du Soleil, the French troupe that created a sensation during the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles, may return.

Efforts are underway to bring “Les Atrides,” the group’s current four-play project, to the United States in the fall of 1992. The Mark Taper Forum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music have agreed to co-sponsor appearances in their respective cities, if financing and other details can be arranged.

“Les Atrides” is a massive look at the House of Atreus, beginning with Euripides’ “Iphigenia in Aulis,” followed by Aeschylus’ Oresteian trilogy--”Agamemnon,” “The Cup Bearers” and “The Eumenides.” The first three plays have opened in Paris, with “The Eumenides” scheduled for this fall.

Spearheading the local campaign to import the group is Vincent Bleuse, who works in the cultural services office at the French consulate in Los Angeles.

“I think it’s going to work,” he said. But the biggest problem is that “there is no way they can fit into a normal theater.” So an alternate space--a sound stage, a warehouse or a Santa Monica Airport hangar, perhaps--must be arranged. The troupe performed its Eastern-flavored Shakespeare on a Hollywood sound stage in 1984. An outdoor site would be eligible, “but it’s difficult in a big city. We don’t want to hear a police siren in the middle of a show.”

Until the venue is set, budgeting is difficult, but Bleuse said the project will be “very, very expensive.” The French government will probably chip in, and Bleuse hopes “to cut a deal with an airline” for travel costs, but “we also need foundations and other sponsors.”

Bleuse is confident the money can be raised. “They have many die-hard fans here. They made such an impression (in 1984).”

Count Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson among those fans. “By God, I’d like to get (“Les Atrides”) here,” he said. “We’re actively looking into the numbers, seeing if it’s physically possible.”

Long Beach Watch: Other than already proven black musicals such as “Sophisticated Ladies” and “Dreamgirls,” Long Beach Civic Light Opera hasn’t done much ethnic programming. But two of the four selections for the group’s New Works Festival, planned for the Center Theatre Aug. 9-11, indicate tentative moves in that direction.

“Ghost Dance,” a musical about an American Indian’s “search to find the Heart of his people,” will launch the festival on Aug. 9. Indian actors are being sought with the assistance of the American Indian Registry.

Next up is a non-musical play, “Pumpin’ the Chihuahua,” described as “a surreal comedy” about two young Latino men.

Neither piece was created by writers of the minority group being depicted. But Long Beach producer Barry Brown dismissed the importance of that fact:

“Ira Levin (‘Deathtrap’) is not a murderer, and he writes murder mysteries.” Besides, he added, no Latinos or Indians were among the “70 or 80” writers who submitted scripts.

Brown said he did not make a conscious effort to extend the organization’s cultural horizons; the pieces selected “just happen to be the best ones.”

Two additional musicals are on the list: “Winter Cruise,” about Somerset Maugham and his fellow travelers on a German freighter in 1919, and “Totie,” a one-woman show about the late comic, starring co-writer Nancy Timpanaro.

The Long Beach group’s recent production of “On Golden Pond,” which brought the Center Theatre back to life after a long period of dormancy, was not a big hit--until the closing weekend. But it was successful enough for the group to go ahead with plans to do a season of three shows there next year. Brown hopes at least one of those slots will be filled by a piece from this year’s New Works Festival.

Meanwhile, LBCLO’s “Pal Joey” is on the boards. Devotees of the original “Joey” may notice that “Take Him,” a duet between the two women with a yen for Joey, is missing. It was replaced by “He Looks Too Good to Me,” a Rodgers and Hart song that wasn’t written for any particular show. The change was initiated for the Goodspeed Opera House revival of the show last year in Connecticut, and the Long Beach producers liked the substitution.