LA Stage Blog - Beta

We’ve heard the quote before. Roberto Benigni shouted it from the stage with childlike exuberance when he won his best actor Oscar for “Life is Beautiful”. It’s a notion that gets bandied about all over the world and down through the ages. The Gift of Poverty.

But what the hell does it really mean?

Well, in lieu of these fragile economic times in which we find ourselves, I’ll tell you what it means: creative freedom.

Without the worry of the bottom dollar, suddenly and inexplicably, we find ourselves focusing on what? The work! This should be our response to NEA funding being cut off (frankly I could do without the NEA altogether - more on that later), state funding dwindling, subscribers un-subscribing. Not only should we face this new reality head on - but in my opinion - the American Theatre Community should embrace if fully.

The Theatre of Poverty. Bring it. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, it’s already been brung.

The Gift of Poverty has always been good to me. At least as far as it has pushed me to be a more creative, more innovative, more disciplined artist. Theatre of Poverty was something Grotowski believed in in his day. And supposedly, Peter Brook did as well. Maybe in his Salad Days, though, cuz I’ve seen some of Sir Pete’s shows over the last twenty years and that set that filled the Ahmanson back in the 90’s, for example, didn’t strike me as being of “small means”. A direct quote from him.

Nevertheless, be it as a director, a writer, a producer or an actor, whenever my choices were limited by economy, or by evil theatre owners (again, another story), my imagination has always been set free by the ensuing necessity for creativity. Hell, I wouldn’t even know what to do with a fifty thousand dollar budget for a play! A hundred thousand? Forget about it! And a ten million dollar budget for a movie? I would be immobilized with paralytic glee. Not that that should stop anyone from contributing vast amounts of money to any of my forthcoming projects. Ahem.

So what does this mean for Los Angeles Theatre Makers? What happens when the grants run out and the budgets vanish? I’ll tell you what it means, it means it’s time to get back to basics. Theatre without sets, lean, mean, basic lights, basic sound, imaginative, suggestive, provocative, stuff that challenges the audience to work, forces the actors and directors and designers to do more with less, to tell stories in a different way, a simpler more organic way. Gone are bloated PR and advertising budgets, enter the new marketing of theatre, the internet, word of mouth, happenings on the street, mixing with the people, street theatre, guerilla theatre, inter-mingling with neighboring theatres. Gone are the overpriced tickets, enter free theatre, five dollar shows, late night shows with free alcohol and brownies, nothing over $20. And those that fail to adapt, well, they will go the way of the dinosaurs and modern day Republicans - they will wither and vanish. Leaving room for a new theatre, a new way of telling stories.

People, this is not a time for fear and trepidation and the shuttering of doors. This is not a time when the meek will inherit the stage. No, this is a time for celebration, for courage and bravado, for boldness and innovation. Your budget has dropped from one hundred thousand to thirty thousand? Fine. Do three bare bones productions and some late night improv and sketches. Reach out to high schools. Do co-productions with other companies that are hurting. Adapt, innovate, but don’t stop working!

In the mid-90’s I scampered to San Francisco, broke and dis-illusioned and took up roost on my brother’s couch to lick my wounds. This, after some great success as an actor on Broadway and a National Tour and film and TV work. Within a year I was working at a law firm by day and a blues club by night and had started my own theatre company built with three surly Brits, myself and a passionate love for the plays of Harold Pinter. I convinced a guy who ran a gym above a bar-launderette called BrainWash to let me produce a tandem production of The Dumbwaiter and The Lover. Basically, I just fucking convinced the guy by sheer force of will, playing off his curiosity with theatre and an absolute lack of knowledge about how to do it. I met my surly Brits at the auditions. I remember auditioning a homeless guy during that long night. And the match in Heaven was made with the surly - but-oh-so-talented Brits. We found us a rollicking gal to round out the bill and we dug into this tiny, rat-infested, drippy, freezing, moldy room above this laundry-bar and we carved us out some kick-ass Pinter. I built the sets, set the lights, ran the lights, created the sound design, ran the sound, directed, produced, did the PR, begged for scraps of money, carried the bleacher-like seats into and out of the space every night and basically just poured everything I had into it. We closed after eight shows because of fire damage from the laundromat down below.

But it was the best theatre I ever had the to honor to be a part of. Still is. To this day.

At one performance, this very ancient gentlemen who nobody knew came to the show. He sat, watched, didn’t respond much. After the show he approached me. He was an English fellow. He asked how I was connected to the show. I told him. He told me had had seen the original productions of both The Lover and The Dumbwaiter in the Fifties and Sixties and that our production was better. The best he’d ever seen, he said. And then he left. I was stunned. I told the cast. They were stunned. And my company Littler Brother Sam was born. We didn’t want to let go of this special thing we had forged out of our own sweat and passion and determination.

We only lasted two years, unfortunately, as I was eventually called back down to LA for work and wound up staying - going on 13 years now. But I keep in touch with them. They work, all the time, ACT, Berkeley Rep, San Fran Shakespeare - but they always remember, that was the best theatre they’d even been involved with too.

Did we make money? No. But our next production was fully financed by people who had seen the Above BrainWash show. Several of the lawyers I worked for wrote checks. As a matter of fact, on one particular performance night, my boss at the time, left his subscription ACT show at halftime and came to our little shit-hole space and managed to catch the second act performace of The Lover. He and his wife were blown away. They said the ACT show was a shadow in comparison to our show. This hundred thousand dollar budget show, a shadow in comparison to our creaking production that cost maybe a thousand all told. He was the first guy to write a check for our next show.

So why do I tell this story?

Because this is where it begins again. Let Broadway crumble and burn and watch what rises from the ashes. Let the NEA dry up and die and watch as private citizens step in and become patrons to their favorite companies. Let the subscription houses keep feeding their aging audiences the same old pre-chewed meals until their theatres are filled with empty husks and rotting corpses, watch as the new millenium artists sparkle and shine with the exuberance of liberated children, filling the stages with the new and the wonderful.

This is a blessing, folks. Take advantage of the Gift of Poverty, before it takes advantage of you.