Van Itallie Not Stuck in the ‘60s

Most people don’t seek icon status. But there are definitely those who have it thrust upon them.

Consider, for example, the case of playwright-actor Jean-Claude van Itallie. One of the seminal figures of the American avant-garde, he’s seldom mentioned without the phrase “icon of the ‘60s,” or some variant, attached.

Yet Van Itallie has never been stuck in time, either aesthetically or personally. Rather, he’s continued to write important--and very different--new works each decade, and to explore new roles for himself within the world of theater.

As a small illustration of this mutability, several of Van Itallie’s recent ventures will be arriving in Los Angeles this month and next. On Dec. 16 and 17, the Mark Taper’s New Work Festival presents “Older,” a collaboration between Van Itallie and the equally iconic Joseph Chaikin that takes the aging process as its subject.

On Jan. 9, Van Itallie will teach an “on-your-feet” workshop in “The Healing Power of Theater” at the Continuum Studios, where he has taught annually for the past several years. And on Jan. 21, Van Itallie opens a six-performance run of his solo autobiographical show “War, Sex & Dreams” at Highways.

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Born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1936, Van Itallie’s family narrowly escaped the Nazis and eventually settled in New York. He was educated at Harvard and went on to become a highly influential participant in the artistic upheaval in New York during the 1960s.

Best known during his early years for the political trilogy “America Hurrah,” Van Itallie was one of the original La Mama playwrights, as well as principal playwright of Chaikin’s Open Theater.

In a very different vein during the 1970s, Van Itallie penned his highly regarded adaptations of the four major plays of Chekhov. Originally staged featuring such major stars as Raul Julia and Meryl Streep, these works continue to be popular. His “Uncle Vanya,” for example, was last seen on Broadway in 1995.

Yet for all the success he has had as a writer, Van Itallie has long been inclined to push himself in new directions. “I had to break out of the mind-set that I was a writer and [see] that I could perform,” he said recently, referring to taking up acting in the 1980s.

“After I started teaching about being on your feet, about writing and performing being the same thing, then I thought I better put my body where my mouth was. I’m more and more allowing my feelings to come out through my body, so that you don’t stay in your head all the time.

“I’m always relieved when any compartments break down in my head,” he continued. “I’m an anti-specialist. I think that’s what’s good about the end of the millennium, that compartments are breaking down. It’s the one good thing that’s happening now. And one place where you do find this kind of thinking--where people bring together many strands of their lives--is the one-person show.”

The dismantling of barriers also suggests room for more fluid connections. And in the case of the two performance pieces and one workshop that Van Itallie will bring to L.A., there is definitely a common thread of spirituality.

“It’s always been of interest to bring together the spiritual and the theatrical,” said Van Itallie, who has been a Tibetan Buddhist for more than 30 years and founded the Shantigar Foundation on his family farm in Rowe, Mass.

“I feel that the creative act, the healing act and spiritual practice are identical. Theater started in a sacred place. Then it was brought into the community. Everybody was in a sense a creative person and was also a listener.”

HALLOWED GROUND: Speaking of sacred places, L.A. will witness the first theatrical performance of “Masada: The Musical.” A one-night-only concert staging of the Shuki Levy-Shell Danielson work will be presented, as a benefit for D.A.R.E. and the Masada Preservation Foundation, at the Shubert Theatre on Dec. 15, hosted by Jon Voight and featuring Davis Gaines and Valerie Perri. The piece will also be broadcast in its entirety tonight on KKGO-FM (105.1) from 8 to 10.

COMMON GROUND: With the Taper’s New Work Festival still in progress, preparations are currently getting underway for another annual new work event: the A.S.K. Theater Projects’ Common Ground Festival. To be held in June on the UCLA campus, the festival showcases innovative works-in-progress, mostly by ensembles. Past participants have included such groups as the Actors’ Gang, Culture Clash, Fabulous Monsters, Bottom’s Dream and others, as well as such individual performers as John Fleck. This year’s selectees will receive production support and honorariums. Applications are due by Jan. 14 for the summer 1999 festival; call A.S.K. at (310) 478-3200.