‘TORCH IN THE SKY’ : Ceramist’s Play Finally Hits the Stage

While more than 25 community and college theater companies dot Ventura County from Ojai to Simi Valley, most deal with established works. Part of this is for artistic reasons and part is commercial: The fact is, audiences are more likely to pay to see something they recognize than something they don’t.

This week, by pure coincidence, two plays will have their world premieres in Ventura County, and both were written by local residents. Other than that, and the fact that both are costume pieces, the two couldn’t be more different. One, performed in Ojai, deals with the life of a relatively obscure historical figure from the Italian Renaissance and was written nearly 50 years ago; the other, played in Thousand Oaks, is a musical adaptation of a famous 19th-Century British novel.

Beatrice Wood is known around the world as a ceramist and a painter. Those who have followed her career may know of Wood’s acting in pre-World War I France, and of the three books of memoirs she’s written. But what most of Wood’s fans may not know is that Beatrice Wood is a playwright.

Her first, and only, full-length play will make its public debut Friday night at Libbey Bowl in Ojai, where Wood has lived since 1948. Opening night is always an exciting event, but this is special: Wood has been waiting for it since she wrote “Torch in the Sky” . . . in 1927.

“It’s never been produced at all,” Wood--who turned 100 on March 3--said in a recent interview. “I wrote it and forgot it, because my mind was so full of other activities; I forget things I’ve written or art that I’ve made, because I go on to other things. For me, the glory of something is in the making.”

“Torch in the Sky” is based on the life of Giordano Bruno, a 16th-Century Dominican priest and philosopher who--after traveling throughout Europe and becoming a favorite of the English court--was imprisoned by the Inquisition for his then-radical thoughts and burned at the stake as a heretic.

Bruno isn’t exactly a household name. But, according to Barbara O’Neill Ferris of Helicon Theatre Company, the group producing the play, the cast and crew are a hotbed of Giordano Bruno fans.

“(Director) Taylor (Kasch) knew of him, and half of our cast came in quoting him,” Ferris said.

“There was a period of Bruno-mania in Italy in the mid-1880s,” said co-producer Hall Powell in a separate conversation. “He was very well known at the time, especially to the Protestants, because he was one of the chief reformers.”

Born in Italy in 1548, Bruno was a scholar and philosopher who rejected the generally held precepts that Earth is the center of the universe, and that mankind is the center of life. After leaving his order in 1575, he traveled throughout France, Germany, Central Europe and England, where he became a favorite of the court and taught at Oxford.

“He was an alchemist, astrologer, and thought of himself as a magus, practicing a kind of good magic, using his astrological divinations,” Powell said. “In intellectual circles, he was considered the equivalent of Copernicus. But, unlike Copernicus and Galileo, his theories were not science-based.”

Said Ferris, “His theory that we weren’t the center of the universe, but that the universe is composed of numerous worlds is what got him into trouble.”

Trying to avoid a spot of trouble herself, Wood decided to temper an immodest statement with a bit of self-deprecation: “I’m going to say something really disgusting, now. It’s really a good play, not a stuffy historical play at all.”

And, according to Ferris, not an overly serious one, either.

“Parts of ‘Torch in the Sky’ are actually funny,” she said. “Bruno is arrogant as sin. We call him the Rock Star, because he has groupies and believes his own press, so to speak.”

“He loved the (Roman Catholic) Church,” explained Wood, “but not its dogmatism and narrowness.”

Wood said she was made aware of Bruno by Annie Besant, a well-known turn-of-the-century philosopher and orator who “ . . . believed that Bruno was one of her incarnations.”

Wood said she “went down to the main library in New York City and read anything I could put my hands on about Bruno, writing notes for three months. Much of what’s said in the play comes from Bruno’s own words. There is also a love story, which isn’t actual.”

The romance, which is Wood’s own creation, is in the first act.

“A young girl who’s lived in his household tells him that she’s in love with him,” said Wood. “He’s horrified, because he’s taken the vows of a monk. When the Inquisition comes after him, they grab her.”

Hearing of Wood’s version of the love story, co-producer Hall Powell grinned: “Did she tell you about Reginald Pole?”

She hadn’t.

“He was a charismatic intellectual who broke off his seven-year affair with Beato (Wood’s nickname) while deciding whether he should devote his energy to more intellectual goals. The disappointing end of that relationship was the reason she sat down and wrote the play.

“Pole felt that he was in touch with the universe, but discovered that there was another part of the universe that he hadn’t discovered--the world of the human heart. ‘At last you get your revenge,’ I told her, and she laughed.”

Powell and Michael McDonnell are producing “Torch in the Sky” for Helicon. Also involved are Helicon co-founders Sydney Coberly and Barbara O’Neill Ferris, and the play’s director, Happy Valley School drama department head Taylor Kasch.

Powell is a producer and screenwriter (now working on the TV series “Law and Order”); his friend McDonnell is a producer whose credits include the recent Robert Urich series “Crossroads” and the husband of Helicon’s Sydney Coberly.

Helicon, Ferris explained, is an active, professional Los Angeles-area theater company based in Venice whose mission “is to produce works of theater expressing the female voice.”

Extant since 1990, Helicon has produced four plays in the Los Angeles area. “Torch in the Sky” is their most ambitious production, and the farthest from home.

“It’s such a thrill for us to be producing the play at Libbey Bowl, in the center of Beatrice’s country,” Ferris said.

Though Wood professes disinterest in the play since she wrote it (“I’m keeping out of the production; I’ll come to the premiere,”) Ferris says the author has been strongly involved in the rewrites that are to be expected from a first production.

“She’s making the language more contemporary, sometimes changing it line by line--she’s really quite excited,” Ferris said.

Director Kasch was recruited locally, though his background includes founding the San Francisco Actors Theater, touring with the road company of “The Fantasticks” and “a lot of summer stock all over the United States.”

“Most of the ‘Torch in the Sky’ cast is from Los Angeles,” he said, “though some are from Ventura County and three of them I know from San Francisco.”

Ferris described the sets as “industrial Gothic--we’ll have a printing press suspended above the stage, with a monk running it. The costumes are fabulous, and we’ll have Gregorian chanters; our musical director, Adriane Torrisi, is a professor at USC who specializes in medieval and Renaissance music.

“We’re trying to do Beato the greatest honor we can. It’s a great celebration of her life and her work.”

Wood hints that the celebration, welcome as it may be, will not serve as a capstone to her life. “I’m so mad,” she said, “that I have to die soon, because I have so many ideas, and would like to see how they come out.”

WHERE AND WHEN

* “Torch in the Sky” opens tomorrow night at Libbey Bowl on East Ojai Avenue in Ojai. Performances are Friday through Monday only at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday evening’s shows only will be signed for the hearing-impaired by Debi Tygell. Ticket prices for all performances range from $13-$20, with a special $100 ticket on Saturday including VIP seating and a post-performance catered reception with Beatrice Wood. All profits will be donated to the Happy Valley Foundation. Tickets can be charged through Theatix (213) 466-1767, or purchased at a number of local business or at the door. For further information, including a complete list of ticket outlets, call 655-5514 or (310) 288-7103.

* After a weekend of previews, “Treasure Island” opens tomorrow night, and continues weekends through June 27 at the Conejo Community Center, 1300 Hendrix Drive in Thousand Oaks. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are $10 general admission; $7.50 seniors and students; and $5 for children. For reservations or further information, call 374-8282.