Lee
Shallat is feeling "complicated." Tonight, her staging of Larry Shue's
Czechoslovakia-set comedy "Wenceslas Square" opens at the Matrix Theatre.
"Czechoslovakia is still really repressive in terms of art," she said.
"But to me, it also resonates to what's happening here, in L.A. It's about
having the courage to do the kind of art that says something, as opposed
to. . . ." She paused. "This play speaks to me, because I work in
television; I direct sitcoms. And there's a part of me that feels
complicated about it."
Complicated—or compromised?
Shallat, 46, smiled ruefully. "The TV work is
challenging, invigorating, and I get paid a lot of money for it. But it
is also a subtle conflict inside me. I think the reason I say
complicated is because I do mean compromised — but I can't let that word
come out of my mouth. That's why I'm moved by this play, why it touches
me. It's not just about an oppressed country. It's about the way we
oppress ourselves."
The piece has its roots in the late playwright's own
1974 trip to Czechoslovakia with a professor who had earlier chronicled
the effects of the Soviet invasion in a 1968 visit.
"The professor had observed how rebellious the spirit
was then. Everyone went to the theater because they weren't allowed to
have public meetings anymore—and that's how they got things through the
censors. Now, six years later, there's been a tremendous change. The
piece is about the ambiguity of everyone's feelings about that change.
Some people have sold out. Some have become absorbed. And some are still
fighting."
|
"This play speaks to me, because I work in
television; I direct sitcoms----It's not just about
an oppressed country. It's about the way we oppress ourselves.'
-Lee Shallat, director of "Wenceslas Square" at the Matrix |
The parallels with current world events are only part
of the appeal for Shallat. "His plays are comedies, but they have a
great underpinning of humanity that makes them so much more," she said
of Shue, whose first produced full-length play, "The Nerd," is on the
boards this summer at Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in
Santa Maria and Solvang.
"It's like butter, the way he writes. He's sort of a
gentle Mamet—in terms of understanding people's rhythms, how their
dialogues overlap, weave in and out."
Beginning Aug. 13, "Wenceslas" will play in repertory
with Alexander Gelman's Soviet-set "A Man With Connections," directed by
Kristoffer Tabori. The programming marks a new approach by Actors for
Themselves producing artistic director Joe Stern, who in the past had
usually staged one big production a year, then rented the theater out
the rest of the time.
"He's going to lower the ticket prices so more people
can come, make it a more fertile theater place," Shallat said. "It's
going to be more theater, with less production value. That doesn't mean
we're doing it on a shoestring. We're just choosing plays that are about
the language and the actor— rather than the eyewash." Accordingly,
Deborah Raymond and Dorian Vernacchio's dual-purpose set is suitably
stark, but manages to convey a sense of European scaffolding and
jail-like bars.
Also part of the new plan is a networking of the four
directors— Shallat, Tabori, Peggy Shannon and Michael Arabian—who will
mount the season. "Michael's already been in to see a couple of
run-throughs," Shallat said. "So have Kristoffer and Joe. We've
collaborated on our notes. Of course, when we made changes on the set,
Kristoffer came in; we sat down and mulled it over, then brought in
a couple of other people to talk about it."
She concedes the format takes some getting used to:
"It's one thing to have someone come in and give you notes on a preview.
It's another thing on a run-through, when you're still like an open
wound. So we're finding our way with that too: when the collaboration is
healthy and encouraging and appropriate—and when it's not."
Because she is up first, Shallat often feels like the
guinea pig in this theatrical experiment: "The whole thing is about
taking a risk, and not thinking you're going to die if it doesn't work out. It's great to just put it out
there, try, not worry about failing. I think the older I get and the
more theater I do, the more pressure I put on myself that it has to be
perfect."
Originally intending to be an English teacher,
Shallat took a detour in Asian theater at the University of
Wisconsin and followed that with Asian-language studies at the
University of Michigan. Then the acting bug bit. But after graduation
from the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program,
"I realized quickly that you don't work very often as an actor—even a
good actor. And I'm way too crazy not to work."
Segueing back into teaching, Shallat spent seven
years running the conservatory at South Coast Repertory, where she also
cast and directed several plays—including "Painting Churches," "True
West" and "Boy Meets Girl." In 1981, yearning to get into film and TV
work, she moved to Los Angeles; her recent TV credits include "Newhart"
and "Head of the Class."
But the path hasn't been without bumps. "It's just
been in the last three years that I've had any financial stability. I
didn't get married till I was 43, so I always had the image that I was
going to have to support myself, make my own way. But I liked thai. I
had to work for it, schlep for it. In Costa Mesa, I managed an apartment
complex to get by."
Making it in Hollywood was even harder.
"I hate to talk about my TV woes," she said
earnestly. "But boy, TV's hard — a hard medium to break into and survive.
As someone from theater, you have to very quickly learn the technical
aspects of this complicated camera stuff; there's no one to teach it to
you. You've got to do it on the fly. There are also some people who do not perceive women as capable. So if you're a woman in
that business, you have to be pretty flawless."
It's not all bad news. "There are people like Gary
David Goldberg [who gave Shallat her TV directing break in 1984 on
"Family Ties"] who are encouraging women.
"Some producers want someone with stage experience,
someone who can communicate with actors—who's not just a traffic cop and
a camera blocker. Some people are excited to have a woman who knows what
she's doing."