Gordon Davidson’s Joy and Burden

Actors speak to their own moments on Center Theatre Group stages, but Gordon Davidson has watched them all--as director, producer and inveterate audience member. Thirty years in, his enthusiasm has not diminished, but he worries about the future of theater and Los Angeles. Excerpts from a recent conversation:

“It has become a cliche, that line from ‘Field of Dreams’: ‘If you build it, they will come.’ But certainly when these buildings were built, they did come. Now, maybe they’ll come if the 101 [Freeway] is not too crowded, if they are not skiing at Aspen or holding down two jobs or watching CD-ROMs or VCRs. Movies are just as bad as they always were, but there are also some great ones--and maybe they speak more immediately and more imaginatively than we have been able to do. . . .

“I think we’ve been uniquely blessed because there is a sense of a town. To me, Los Angeles is more than Hollywood. The talent pool gives an opportunity to dream about a time when moving back and forth between film and television and the theater is natural, a sense of a partnership. It’s a blessing and a curse, because the pool who are attracted to here also need to do that other work. . . .”

“One worries about young people whose main source of stimulation has been television and film. They write plays that are really teleplays or movie scripts. Scene 1, the top of the Empire State Building; Scene 2, the bottom of the East River. How do I get there? . . .

“I’m profoundly worried about the whole question of multiculturalism, whatever you want to call it. . . . But true diversity, of gender and race and ethnicity and age, all the elements that make up for a rich society, a rich community, are not necessarily in harmony with a five-play season with one Shakespeare.

“There is a certain change of spirit. Before, there was kind of a can-do, art-of-the-impossible atmosphere. Now it’s retrenchment, layoffs, downsizing, outsourcing. The only question I ask is: At what price? . . .

“The theater is always in crisis; so many things have happened in 30 years--the Vietnam War, civil rights, post-assassinations, the economics during the Reagan years and the recession. And here we are, still trying to do seasons of work. There aren’t as many political plays, because everything is drifting more to the center. That’s why the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were so interesting--there was a real polarization and passion. . . .

“The best theater should be dangerous--dangerous to complacency, dangerous to the status quo.”