Capitol Steps
A week of theater in D.C.
By Don Shirley
One of them is Washington, D.C. I saw 10 shows there last week, during a conference of the American Theatre Critics Association.
For this Angeleno, the biggest kick of D.C. theater right now is the recent expansion of some of the capital city’s most adventurous companies, operating on Actors’ Equity contracts within gorgeous new post-industrial spaces that seat between 200 and 500.
In L.A., many of the more cutting-edge companies seem to be permanently trapped in low-profile spaces that seat fewer than 100, where the actors are paid chicken feed ... er, the token fees allowed under Equity’s L.A.-based 99-Seat Theater Plan.
It might be easy to conclude that Washingtonians must be more adventurous theatergoers than Angelenos, but I say the problem is rooted in L.A.’s excessive supply of actors.
Because of the mass quantities of talented would-be stars here, Equity allows them to display their prowess for virtually no money. This certainly has short-term advantages for the theatergoer – the remarkable intimacy in such close quarters, the lower ticket prices, the depth of the talent pool. But it also has some long-term disadvantages.
Too many actors think of theater as something they might do on the side, in between screen jobs – and after a few such excursions, they burn out. Too many of these theaters are so tiny that they hardly make a dent in public consciousness, no matter how good their offerings – especially when there are so many of them competing with each other for theatergoers.
In Washington, by contrast, there is no 99-Seat Theater Plan. Companies that want to use professional actors have to hire them on some form of an Equity contract. In order to pay for it, they want to be able to sell more than 99 seats per performance.
In most cases, the new Washington venues are not so big that they sacrifice intimacy. You should see the second production of the Kander/Ebb musical The Visit, starring Chita Rivera and George Hearn, at the Signature Theatre’s new $16 million complex in arts-crazy Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington. This up-close experience in a black box might give way to a conventional Broadway-scale staging in the show’s next incarnation, so I mean that literally – see it now.
One telling exception to the human scale of D.C.’s new venues is the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 775-seat Harman Hall, which opened with a splash last fall. Judging only from the starchy and static Antony and Cleopatra that I saw, it’s too big. The same company continues to operate the 451-seat Lansburgh Theatre, where the current Imaginary Invalid, starring Rene Auberjonois, is a refreshing rebuttal to the pomp and circumstance inside the Harman.
A few blocks away, the Woolly Mammoth Theatre – usually considered the city’s outstanding new plays specialist – is in shiny new mid-size quarters. The Studio Theatre, also not far away, has a new complex with four mid-sized thrust stages.
Reading Washington theater programs and hearing testimony from some of the participants, it’s clear that Washington has a more cohesive theater scene than L.A. That actors and directors can regularly rotate among wage-paying theaters makes it easier for them to devote their attention to a life in the theater.
Of course, the cohesion also stems in part from D.C.’s smaller size, and smaller isn’t always better. It was jarring to see a play populated by Mexican characters cast with no Spanish-surnamed actors. And it was notable that a playwright from L.A.’s 99-seat arena, EM Lewis, won a prize at the conference, for Heads.
Still, D.C.’s model deserves attention. Not all the juicy theater in Washington takes place behind closed doors.
Published: 06/25/2008
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
