Tale Told at Last : Actor’s Faith Brings Play to Stage After 4 Near Misses

New plays by new writers are notoriously hard to produce.

Take “A Lyon’s Tale” by local playwright Reid Baer. For four years, Baer, 37, tried to get his first full-length play produced. Four times it almost happened, once in an Equity production that would have starred Gordon Jump. Now it finally is happening as a small, independent production at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company’s small space.

“A Lyon’s Tale” opens Friday and will run through Aug. 25.

What made this fifth production finally take off?

In two words: Bob Duch.

Duch, the lead actor, believed in the play so strongly that he raised the money to produce the play himself.

And, in a few more words: The Southwood Hospital and Residential Treatment Center in Chula Vista.

The hospital management was so impressed by the description of a dysfunctional family in a staged reading of the show at the Hahn Cosmopolitan last fall, that Southwood gave Baer money to help finance the writing and followed up by mailing news about the play to the mental health community.

According to Baer, the dysfunction includes emotional, behavioral, sexual and substance abuse on several levels.

As a result, the show has already sold out for opening night--which is pretty unusual for a new show by a new writer with a new company.

According to Regina Szyszkiewicz, director of community relations at Southwood, what interested the hospital was the play’s sensitive depiction of the long-term results a dysfunctional family can have on adult children.

In the first act of “A Lyon’s Tale,” Holly brings Chris home to meet her family, and those scenes alternate with imaginary scenes of what she fears might happen. In the second act, her fears and concerns about her family actually occur in her own marriage.

“We think there is so much dysfunction in families and in relationships today, we think (the play) is one way of reaching people and letting them know they’re not alone. We’re excited about our involvement. We want to spread the word about mental health,” Szyszkiewicz said.

Baer hopes that the Psychiatric Institute of America, the parent company of Southwood Hospital and 69 other hospitals across the country, might finance a tour of the play as well. Szyszkiewicz said that is a possibility.

Duch, a 35-year-old painting contractor, wouldn’t be surprised at all if that happens. He has staked $15,000 of his own money on his belief that this play has a future.

Duch’s involvement with “A Lyon’s Tale” began four years ago when he auditioned for the very first planned production of “A Lyon’s Tale” and got the lead of Chris Jones, the man a young woman named Holly Lyon brings home to meet her family.

When that production fell through, he auditioned for the new director of the second planned production. He got the part again, only to have that production fall through. He auditioned for a third director and got the part again, only to again watch the plans for that production collapse. After this happened for a fourth time, Duch decided to take matters into his own hands.

“I said ‘what’s going on?’ ” Duch recalled. “It fell through four times, and I said, ‘Dammit, I don’t care what it takes, it’s going to go.’ I’ve been working side jobs and night jobs to get this thing to fly.”

Duch and his wife, Julianne Christina Rael/Duch are now the show’s executive producers.

When an actor pays the cost of a show he’s starring in, he runs the risk that the project will be seen as self-promotion.

But that’s not the case here, the playwright insists.

“It was a coincidence that he kept being cast,” Baer said. “Finally in the end he said, ‘I believe in this so much that I want to put not only my acting talents in it but also my money.’ It might sound like a vanity production except that he was cast by four separate directors. He has a right to it.

“The production wouldn’t happen without him. Because he knows construction, he’s worked on the set, because he knows business, he’s worked as executive producer. He’s had a lot of input into the rewrites, he’s been the facilitator of the production. And he’s a good friend.”

If the point of the play is that we are all, in part, programmed by our upbringing, Duch said he believes that applies to him too.

Duch’s parents were deaf and the main thing he said he learned from them is “Don’t tell me, show me.”

It is because of his parents, he said, that he believes that words without actions are worthless.

“I stand behind what I say,” said Duch. “If I say I’m going to do something I do it. I took me almost a year and a lot of jobs to do it. You can imagine the strain on the family. . . . I definitely believe in the play, I definitely believe it has merit. It doesn’t answer questions, but it gives you a glimpse of a whacked out family and at the same time people can get a glimpse at themselves.

“But now, no matter how this production goes I can say I said I was going to put it up and I put it up. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

Performances of “A Lyon’s Tale” are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays with a Sunday matinee at 2 , through Aug. 25 at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company, 547 4th Ave., 234-9583. There will be a special benefit performance of the show for the Crime Victims Fund Tuesday at 7 p.m. with tickets available through the Crime Victims Fund at 238-1988.