Season One – Even Theatre Companies Have to Find Themselves

In 1980 we had closed our first play, The Way of the World, and to our surprise  we had made a small profit on it.

So we thought we’d try it again. But finding a classical play we could mount with almost no set and with costumes out of thrift shops seemed daunting. (It was a small profit.) But there was a strong feeling about the avant-garde theatre at the time and the avant-garde plays around at the time looked like they could be done with no set at all, and with pretty much any costumes the actors might already own. The avant-garde drama in 1980 was the theatre of the absurd and existentialist theatre, and that looked like the way to go. The best of that genre was Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, but that required four men, one boy, and a tree. So it seemed like a poor choice for a company that wanted to center on an ensemble. (We had as many women as men, and some of our best actors were what we used to call actresses. [We’ve done Godot twice, but that is an article for another time.]) King Lear or Saint Joan costumed out of thrift stores just didn’t seem quite right, so we looked to Eugene Ionesco. We found three one-acts that could be done in pretty much any costume style you can imagine and required  only a table and several folding chairs: The Chairs (of course), Jack, or the Submission, and The Bald Soprano. We called the show Trionesco, and, guess what, we made a small profit on it and audiences liked it.

So, clearly, that was the way to go. But the actors did not enjoy it. The directors of the three plays did; there are creative things one can do with these absurd plays that you just cannot do with realistic plays; things that free up a director, but give the actor impossible motivations. How does a director tell an actor what should be his motivation, what his character means, when they have to speak lines like these:

Mr. Smith: The pope elopes! The pope’s got no horoscope. The horoscope’s bespoke

Mrs. Martin: Bazaar, Balzac, bazooka!

Mr. Martin: Bizarre, beaux-arts, brassieres!

Mr. Smith: A, e, i, o, u, a, e, i, o, u, a, e, i, o, u, i!

Mrs. Martin: B, c, d, f, g, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, x, z!

Mr. Martin: From sage to stooge, from stage to serge!

Mrs. Smith: Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo!

Here is Joan Kuder Bell, in full Stanislavski Method acting reading that last line:

So, for our third play, we wanted something that would really engage the actors. Way of the World was all style and wit; Trionesco was all—well—absurd. And of course, both were comedies. We wanted depth of character, seriousness of purpose, compelling tragic irony, and something that would push us, as actors, to our limits.

We knew we wanted to be an actors’ company, an ensemble company. Most of us had come out of academic theatre, and in that kind of theatre, in high school and in college, we worked with the same actors in show after show. In this show I am your lover. In the last show I was your murderer. In the one before that I was your landlord. Growing up together as actors gave us a kind of comfort and strength and courage. When we left school, those of us who continued in community theatre, we were now acting with strangers. Loving someone, killing someone, is easier to do five nights a week if you have done it before—with her.  And you do it better.

A couple of us who founded The Upstart Crow had worked together in a few shows in a community theatre. Once, at an-end-of-the-season meeting of performers and patrons of the theatre the business manager of that theatre announced, with pride, that they had cast 104 roles that season and that those roles had been played by 100 different actors. (We two were half of the four who had appeared twice.) We did not think those numbers were anything to be proud of. Yes, it meant the theatre was a place were lots of people could do community outreach, much like serving from time to time at a bake sale, but it had very little to do with our desire—our compulsion, even—to perform as artists.

That may have been the defining moment in the creation of The Upstart Crow. We would be an ensemble: a dues-paying membership company of actors who would pick the shows we would do, pick directors (out of our membership), and cast ourselves, first, in the primary roles.

So, for our third show we picked something we thought would make our actors sweat. That would be Ibsen. So we chose a late Ibsen; Little Eyolf, a wonderfully profound (and deeply disturbing) play by the first and perhaps greatest modern dramatist.

Joan Bell, who said “Choo, choo, choo …” with great feeling in The Bald Soprano, directed; Kathy Reed, who had two noses in Jack, or the Submission played the female lead in Eyolf; I, Richard Bell, who directed all her noses, now played her husband. And so forth.

And how do we stack up against the 100 actors who played 104 roles? Well, over 35 years, we have had about 400 actors. And they have played about 1800 roles. And more: four actors who were in The Way of the World in 1980 performed with us in our last, our 35th season. That’s an ensemble.