Bowery Borrows From Bard to Reflect Changes

What’s in a name? The Bowery Theatre will find out when it takes a new name, the Blackfriars Theatre, with its 1991-92 season opener, Beth Henley’s “Abundance.”

The San Diego premiere of the Henley play will open Sept. 29 to be followed by a new installment of the company’s successful “Laughing Buddha Wholistick Radio Theatre” in December. The two will be the first half of a four-play season to be announced later.

Ralph Elias, artistic director of the theater, said he picked Blackfriars because it was the name of the theater where Shakespeare’s company started performing in 1608.

The new name does not mean a change in programming or leadership, Elias stressed. “The plays are still going to be contemporary and largely American,” he said.

Instead, the change is meant to reflect changes that have occurred since Elias took over the theater in May 1988 at its former home at 480 Elm St. Since then, he has guided the theater through the 1989 creation of its 78-seat home at the Kingston Playhouse at 1055 5th Ave. and its acquisition of professional status when the company signed a Small Professional Theatre Contract with Actors Equity Assn. just three months later, in December, 1989.

It is hoped the change in name may bring about a change--that is to say, an increase--in funding. The Bowery had to reschedule one show and replace another because of a deficit this year. The $38,000 shortfall has been reduced to about $10,000, but money is still needed to mount the new season.

“The original name was a tongue-in-cheek comment on the original location for the theater, which was kind of seedy in 1982 when it got started,” Elias said. “But, since we’re in a different location and we’ve gotten more professional and we do professional development and marketing, we found it was sometimes difficult to be taken seriously as the Bowery Theatre. The problem was not with the people who knew us or who knew the work, but foundations and arts commissions and corporations. Part of it has to do with the search for new audiences as well.”

Don’t look for the Kingston Playhouse, which the Bowery operates, to be called the Kingston Playhouse in September either. The Kingston Hotel, which signed a lease with the Bowery to allow it to use its space, now has new owners, and it is unlikely they will maintain the Kingston name.

Free Shakespeare!

San Diego never has a shortage of summer Shakespeare, but as of Saturday, for the first time, free Shakespeare productions outnumber the paying events 3 to 1.

Some might argue that you get what you pay for. To see Hal Holbrook give a critically acclaimed performance in “The Merchant of Venice” at the Old Globe’s Lowell Davies Festival Stage costs money--naturally.

But to see the San Diego All-City Free Shakespeare Festival, formerly called the Naked Shakespeare Company, produce “Julius Caesar” (opening Saturday and running at 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays in repertory with “The Tempest”) costs nothing--and it’s in Zoro Garden, just around the corner from “The Merchant” in Balboa Park. Also free is Octad-One’s production of “The Taming of the Shrew” at 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at the Theatre East Amphitheatre in El Cajon.

It should be noted that the San Diego All-City Free Shakespeare Festival and Octad-One aren’t professional companies. The actors, many of whom may be speaking the words of the Bard for the first time, aren’t paid. The shows have minimal scenery, props and lights--if any at all. And both companies trim the plays, with Octad-One condensing its “Shrew” to about 90 minutes.

But love’s labor isn’t lost, and audiences number in the hundreds for each performance--including picnicking families and little children, with dolls and toys in tow. Passersbys are welcome to come and go as they please, and, for some, that’s just as they like it.

“There is no real avenue or outlet for working stiffs who like to be involved in theater,” said Christopher R, director of the All-City Free Shakespeare Festival, who describes himself as one of those working stiffs.

Christopher R, who also produces at the Marquis Public Theatre, works during the day managing a theatrical gun rental business (the guns shoot blanks) to support his theater habit.

“This is something that we need desperately in this city. We’re just plugging along, trying to beautifully illustrate the painfully obvious, which is that people have to be able to express themselves. These are not professional actors, but they are striving to be professional in their expression,” Christopher R said.

As for Martin Gerrish, a onetime drama professor from Grossmont College who runs Octad-One, producing free Shakespeare in addition to Octad-One’s five-play season at the Grove Playhouse, provides a welcome alternative to retirement.

“It’s much better than sitting home watching television,” Gerrish said.

PROGRAM NOTES: Maria Tucci and Bennet Guillory will co-star with Athol Fugard in Fugard’s “A Lesson from Aloes” at the Mandell Weiss Theatre beginning Aug. 25. Tucci was in the original American cast of “A Lesson from Aloes” at the Yale Repertory Theatre in April, 1980. Fugard, who will direct, makes his West Coast acting debut with this show. . . .

Local actress Cathryn Pisarski, who is becoming known for writing work that can be performed comfortably in restaurants and coffee shops, will present two new one-act comedies, “Open All Night,” about two women who meet in an all-night coffee shop, and “Packing,” about a woman leaving her husband, both at the North Park Coffee Company Aug. 1-17 at 8 p.m. Pisarski co-stars with Dana Hooley. . . .

Far Out Productions, the company that recently concluded its “Fresh Dish” presentation of gay and lesbian performers, will return to Sushi Performance Gallery with “So Many Women,” a variety show about the lesbian experience, written and performed by local artists. . . .

“Shelly Garrett’s Living Room,” a play by Shelly Garrett, will be presented Aug. 15-18 at the Spreckels Theatre. . . .

Negotiations continue for the West Coast premiere of “Falsettoland” at the Old Globe Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum. New York producer Steven Suskin said “there’s definitely interest” in William Finn’s latest musical, which touches on love, AIDS and a bar mitzvah, all in 75 minutes, but it now looks as if the show won’t be a go here before next spring.