An Unscripted Dramatic Pause

Despite all the stage fare that this city offers, Los Angeles theater has long suffered from a lack of clear identity.

Artists nurtured in L.A. like Sam Shepard, George C. Wolfe, Jon Robin Baitz and David Henry Hwang are seldom identified with the city. Those who have chosen to live here--from the late Reza Abdoh to Peter Sellars--go comparatively unappreciated on their home turf. And often shows that start in L.A. and go on to Eastern acclaim--”Stand-Up Tragedy,” “Family Business” and many more--are perceived as having sprung, fully developed, from Gotham’s womb.

“I’ve seen six plays into publication here in L.A. and taken three [out of town],” says director Ron Link. “Many things start here, but that’s still to the denial of most people.”

The problem is partly one of perception. “After something like [my recent staging of] ‘Skylight,’ ” says Taper producing director Robert Egan, “I have more people come up to me and say, ‘I never expected to see this quality of theater in L.A.’ People still look at theater in L.A. as a bit of an aberration.”

In fact, if L.A. theater has any identity at all, it is defined by its trends. From the expansion of alternative spaces in the 1970s, to the ambitious experiments of the 1980s, to the multiculturalism of the 1990s, the byword has been change.

Yet after so many years of innovation, L.A. theater now finds itself in between waves. The scene is in a moment--a markedly conservative moment--of transition.

This season, the city’s long-standing resident houses--the Mark Taper Forum and the Pasadena Playhouse--have scheduled mostly dramaturgically conventional plays and hardly any premieres. The newest resident theater, the Geffen Playhouse, is mostly following suit, offering traditional fare targeted to the same Westside audience that constitutes much of the Taper’s subscriber base.

The Geffen’s season does include Mabou Mines’ “Peter and Wendy,” but this is one of the avant-garde New York collective’s least controversial works in a long time. Indeed, L.A. theater typically falls short when it comes to presenting large-scale avant-garde work--a gap occasionally filled by UCLA’s Center for the Performing Arts.

The smaller theaters that are poised to move up to mid-size--East West Players and A Noise Within--are among the most traditionally oriented. And the more innovative small companies--Cornerstone, the Actors’ Gang--have focused their experimental energy on new ways of minding the bottom line, including inter-company collaboration.

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Arguably, L.A. theater is long overdue for bit of stasis.

Because the city’s larger arts institutions date only from the 1960s, they’re not nearly as entrenched as their counterparts in Eastern cities. Thanks to the overweening presence of pop culture, they also tend to be more open to change than many of the New York equivalents.

L.A.’s theaters are, in short, ever eager to make their mark, and for decades that has meant exploring the cutting edge. During the 1970s, for example, downtown alternative arts institutions such as the Woman’s Building and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions played a pivotal role in the emergence of performance art. In the 1980s, L.A.’s arts turned toward larger-scale experimentalism. Prompted in part by the success of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, avant-garde groups were imported for the 1987 Los Angeles Festival and made an impact on local artists and audiences. At the same time, the Los Angeles Theatre Center came to be known for its politically engaged and ethnically diverse offerings. Artists such as Sellars--who was named to succeed Robert Fitzpatrick as the head of the L.A. Festival--and Abdoh, working out of LATC, set the creative tone.

Edgy, experimental work found a new home in 1989 when writer-performer Tim Miller and writer Linda Burnham founded the dance and performance art venue known as Highways. But only a couple of years later, the map began to reconfigure and shrink for a variety of reasons--some of them financial, some personal (burnout), some aesthetic. In 1991, LATC closed. The following year, the Woman’s Building also shut its doors.

The avant-garde boom segued into multiculturalism--a nexus of policies and programs designed to advance artists and audiences of color--which reached its high-water mark in the early ‘90s. The 1990 and 1993 incarnations of the Los Angeles Festival were much more pointedly multicultural than either of the earlier versions.

The Taper, which had long been interested somewhat in politically charged work, became the principal shelter for artists of color and race-based experiments just as private and public granting organizations were looking to support ethnicity-based projects.

In 1993, the Taper received a $1.47-million grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. The four-year award was matched by a three-year NEA grant and paid for the theater’s Latino Theatre Initiative. As a direct result, the Taper presented Luis Valdez’s “Bandido!,” Eduardo Machado’s “Floating Islands” and an adaptation of John Niehardt’s “Black Elk Speaks,” among others, all within an 18-month period that began in 1993.

These works, however, fared poorly with audiences and critics. “Certain plays that we have taken to the mainstage were not ready,” Egan concedes. “I think everybody has learned their lesson.”

Egan’s comment broaches a point of contention surrounding the funding of multicultural ventures. Some theater artists and writers argue that mainstream theaters embraced diversity out of expediency.

“What happened with all this multicultural funding was that it went to the larger institutions,” says director L. Kenneth Richardson, who runs the Taper’s Blacksmyths lab for African American playwrights. “But did they know the field?”

The Lila Wallace grant has since run its course and the Taper has returned to presenting fewer mainstage productions targeting minority constituencies. The theater now has approximately one such work each year, a number that--save for the Lila Wallace years--has varied little since the theater was founded in 1967.

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Reviews for recent shows at the Taper, Geffen and Pasadena Playhouse have been positive, as have notices for the larger musicals currently in town: “Rent” at the Ahmanson and “Ragtime” at the Shubert. And people in the theater community are enthusiastic about the work being done.

“Take three plays with good reviews: ‘Ragtime,’ ‘Skylight’ and [“Old Wicked Songs”],’ ” notes Geffen Playhouse artistic director Gil Cates, whose theater has entered its second season with a healthy 6,000-subscriber base. “You can’t get better responses.”

The question that remains, however, is whether this conservative moment represents progress or retrenchment. While artists and others disagree about whether multiculturalism was a success, most acknowledge that it has been a key factor in bringing L.A. theater to where it is now.

Those who believe L.A.’s major trend of the past decade yielded positive results cite the presence of more artists of color holding key staff positions at major theaters. The Pasadena Playhouse, for example, recently appointed a new artistic director, the highly respected Sheldon Epps, who’s the first African American to hold such a position at an important Southland venue.

“You’re talking to a black man who is the artistic director of a major California theater for the first time in the history of California theater, so obviously I feel this is a good time for artists of color in major positions in theaters,” Epps says. “These houses are now lived in by people of all colors.”

Similarly, at the Taper, former Latino Initiative staffers Luis Alfaro and Diane Rodriguez are now part of the theater’s regular work force. “The big positive thing for us was that we got integrated into the company,” says playwright-performer Alfaro, a recent MacArthur genius grant recipient. “I’ve never seen it so integrated here.”

“I don’t think we’re in the same place as we were before,” writer-performer Rodriguez says. “Because this season doesn’t have a Latino play, I’m not discouraged by that. I think we will eventually get on the mainstage, but that’s not the be-all and end-all.”

And while the mainstage programming at the Taper may be less overtly multicultural, there are more major L.A. venues presenting works by artists of color. The Geffen, the Taper and Pasadena Playhouse will present works by black writers this season.

Where once there was a heated debate over “quality” vs. diversity, the predominant attitude now is that broad representation and professionalism need not be mutually exclusive. “I’m doing [“Harriet’s Return”] because it’s a terrific play,” says Cates, referring to a work written by and starring black artists.

“I’m happy that it’s a nonwhite play, in the sense that it’s good for us to encourage multiculturalism and diversified theater. But if you asked me if I’m doing it specifically because of that, the answer would be no.”

Yet, others argue that theaters around the country have returned to a narrow range of acceptable work from artists of color.

“I am not happy at all with the representation,” Richardson says. “One play is done and then everyone does that play time and time again. The writers that I think are the most challenging don’t get a chance because they don’t fit the mold of the ‘black’ play.”

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With the heyday of multiculturalism now past and funding getting tighter all the time, what lies ahead for L.A. theater may depend on both onstage and offstage ingenuity.

For some small groups, such as the 5-year-old East L.A. Classical Theatre, there’s solace in the schools. “It’s a question of finding ways to survive,” says artistic director Tony Plana. “There’s more support for educational outreach than for the professional work. I’m looking at one subsidizing the other.”

In a move that mirrors both the national resident theater and the opera world’s increased dependence on co-productions, other small groups are giving intergroup collaboration a try. “Companies are banding together, in the same way as it was years ago when I was doing AIDS-related work,” Alfaro says.

A couple of notable cases in point are joint efforts between the LocoMotion II Theater Festival, a coalition of small companies including About Productions, the Actors’ Gang and Black Theater Artists Workshop, in a festival at Actors’ Gang. The Actors’ Gang is also working on a collaboration with Cornerstone Theatre.

The motives for pooling resources are both practical and creative. “What we’re looking for in collaboration is not necessarily companies that do exactly what we do,” Actors’ Gang director Mark Seldis says. “The thing that’s similar is the level of commitment to the art form.”

Cornerstone, which is known for its community-based work, is also looking toward financial stabilization. “We’re extremely grant-reliant,” artistic director Bill Rauch says. “Our challenge is to work on our earned income.”

The Actors’ Gang, which suffered an abrupt loss of funding when founder Tim Robbins ended his association with the group last year, has also been working on fiscal stability. “This year was our year to catch up,” Seldis says.

For the theater community at large, it’s a year of careful assessment, as it faces the ongoing uncertainty of a scene still evolving toward an identity of its own.

“In my heart of hearts, I believe that if you do good shows, they will come,” Cates says.

“I’m long-term optimistic, but short term, it’s puzzling.

“It’s a strange year. Maybe it’s El Nino.”

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LocoMotion II Begins Saturday

LocoMotion II, a six-week festival of shows by About Productions, the Black Theater Artists Workshop and the Actors’ Gang, kicks off Saturday with “Cross Genres, Collaboration and Unexpected Presentations,” a two-day symposium of workshops, panel discussions and performances of works-in-progress at the Actors’ Gang Theater at 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.

For scheduling and fee information, call About Productions at (213) 462-3166.