Classical Repertory Theater Conceived : UCI Drama Chairman Proposes ‘Radical’ Productions at New Irvine Facility

When Robert Cohen, the chairman of the UC Irvine drama department, envisions a professional classical repertory company for the $12.2-million Irvine Theatre scheduled to open in 1990, he invokes the term “radical” not once but several times.

Lest anyone draw the wrong conclusion, he hastens to add that he doesn’t mean “left-wing radical,” although he cites as models the sort of avant-garde productions mounted by two of Europe’s most politically engaged, left-wing theaters--the Schaubuhne in West Berlin and the Schauspielhaus in Bochum, West Germany--both of which grew out of the ferment of the 1960s.

“I use ‘radical’ in its literal sense, meaning from the roots,” he says, relaxing in the living room of his Laguna Beach home overlooking Bluebird Canyon. “But could there be bag ladies in Shakespeare? You’re damned right there could.”

For Cohen, 50, whose zippy enthusiasm and informal personal style seem to belie his 23 years as an academician, the three “Rs” of radical theater are “research,” “reconception” and “reinvention.”

The classical plays he hopes to mount at the 750-seat theater, beginning in the fall of 1991, would “not just put a superficial gloss on old ideas,” he maintains. “I’m talking about radically reconceived productions, new translations from the standard world repertoire, new dramaturgical analyses and, I would say, extremely aggressively interpreted and innovatively done.”

Nine competitive bids for construction of the Irvine Theatre were received by the city of Irvine last week. Recommendations for a contractor will be made to the City Council on Dec. 13, according to Douglas C. Rankin, general manager of the Irvine Theatre Operating Co. “At the moment the bids look high,” he says. “But ground could be broken as early as January.”

The theater is a joint venture of the city of Irvine, which has raised $9.5 million for construction; UCI, which has donated a 2.3-acre site on Campus Drive at the front entrance to the university, and corporate donors who have given $1.4 million so far in a $2.7-million capital campaign.

Cohen has drawn up a detailed proposal, which is circulating privately, that calls for a 10-week, three-play season to be produced from mid-September to mid-November on an annual budget of $787,000. Financing would come from box office earnings and hoped-for university, foundation and corporate subsidies.

The repertory company, to be named the Irvine Classic Theatre, would hire 14 professional actors each season for a period of 18 weeks (providing 8 weeks of on-campus rehearsal), plus 10 apprentices from the UCI graduate drama program.

Among the players would be “four distinguished actors of star caliber,” Cohen says. He notes that Patrick Stewart, of “Star Trek” fame and a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, already has agreed to play the title role in “Macbeth” the first season.

“We won’t be doing novelty Shakespeare,” Cohen says. “There’s a difference between that and radically reconceived Shakespeare. With novelty productions you get an idea and say: ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fun!’ And if it’s not working by the end of two weeks of rehearsal, you put a nice spin on it and you throw a lot of light on it and that’s that. We’ll be doing deeply thought-out work, a year in gestation.”

The ICT repertoire would span the globe from the English and European classics to “barely touched” Latin American dramas. “There’s a possibility of opening the entire world repertoire as it is regularly seen in Europe,” Cohen says. “Nor would we exclude music theater or certain kinds of opera.”

How his proposal will play when it is formally submitted to the Irvine Theatre’s eight-member programming committee (of which Cohen is a member) remains to be seen.

“I think it’s a very exciting idea,” says Rankin, who also heads the programming committee. “Artistically, it does not duplicate in its basic premise what South Coast Repertory does or any other theater in the area, including the Grove Shakespeare Festival.”

But because an ICT season would require a considerable block of time, it may face opposition. “To have exclusive use of the facility for 10 weeks is one issue the committee, quite frankly, will have to address,” Rankin cautions. “Can we honor all of our commitments to all our other groups?”

As a joint venture, he says, the multipurpose hall will be shared by community-based performance groups, guest artists brought in by the operating company and arts groups from UCI. More specific guidelines for programming policy will be issued in March, Rankin says. However, it is already agreed that the community, the operating company and the university will each have the theater a third of the time.

“This is not going to be an elitist facility for select groups, whether it be university or community,” says Irvine Councilwoman Sally Anne Miller, who is also a member of the theater operating company’s board of trustees.

“Don’t forget, this city kicked in a lot of money to gain access to this facility,” she points out. “If, in fact, Cohen’s proposal works out in the amount of time allocated to the university, fine. But it has been perfectly clear from day one that no one group would dominate the use of this theater.”

Meanwhile, Cohen’s proposal must gain the backing of the university itself before ICT can become a reality. And that would require a beginning subsidy of $300,000 in addition to a 3-year commitment of $200,000 per year, Cohen says, so that other funds could be raised through foundation and corporate donations.

“Everybody is enthusiastic,” he notes. “The problem in a university is that enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily carry any dollars with it. The dean of fine arts has to decide. If the university doesn’t kick in money, it’s not going to happen. It’s as simple as that.”

Robert Hickok, the newly appointed dean of the School of Fine Arts, doesn’t officially take up his post until Dec. 1 and won’t arrive until Dec. 10 from Milwaukee, where he is the arts dean at the University of Wisconsin. But he has been told of Cohen’s proposal.

“It sounds like a good idea as much as I know about it,” Hickok says from his Milwaukee office. “I haven’t had a chance to study the specifics. Until I’m on the scene and have the opportunity to confer with the chancellor and vice chancellor, it is impossible to predict. We’d have to look at the total budget of the university.”

Because the School of Fine Arts is already operating at its fiscal limit--as is the entire university--new funds must be found. “The university would have to be willing to finance this as a special project,” says drama professor Cameron Harvey, who headed the UCI search committee for the new arts dean and is an enthusiastic supporter of the proposal.

According to Cohen’s budget projections, the ICT would take in $560,000 at the box office in its first season--based on 45% attendance and an average ticket price of $20--thus requiring a $227,000 subsidy to cover annual costs. At 80% attendance, the troupe actually could break even.

The major expenditures would be $96,000 for the artistic staff, $145,000 for the actors (including $20,000 per season to each of the four stars), $157,000 for the production staff, $143,000 for production expenses and $166,000 for administration and publicity.

“You’ve got to remember that this is really a bargain,” Cohen explains, “because there will be a spillover of all kinds of resources from the university. Things that are essentially paid for, like production shops, are already available to us.”

Moreover, the faculty would provide artistic and intellectual depth, he notes. The ICT would draw heavily on the talents of drama department members--William Needles, Keith Fowler, Stewart Duckworth and Dudley Knight, to mention a few--who have extensive experience at the major classical repertory festivals around the country.

Cohen cites other professional repertory companies connected with universities as models for the sort of program he hopes to implement, among them the year-round Yale Repertory Theatre and the Missouri Repertory and the summer Williamstown Theatre Festival. “But none of them does what I’m proposing,” he maintains.

An ICT season might include Buchner’s “Wozzeck” or Kleist’s “The Prince of Homberg,” perhaps an offering from Ivanov (the Russian, Gorky-influenced “anti-playwright”) or a Brecht play, more likely something from Aeschylus, and certainly any one of the 25 works from the Shakespeare canon that have become part of the standard international repertoire.

But there probably will be nothing from Shaw. “He thoroughly conceptualized his plays himself,” Cohen says. “They don’t lend themselves to reconceptualization unless it’s something like ‘Heartbreak House.’ Shaw was probably the most conscious playwright who ever wrote.”

Shakespeare’s plays, on the other hand, “are so dense that they are always capable of reinvention,” he says. “That’s why there’s a whole Shakespeare industry out there. It’s interesting that when you look back at theater history, you find that the one century whose approach to Shakespeare we know almost nothing about is his own.”

Apart from the prestige that would accrue to the campus community from a successful ICT season, Cohen says, there would be other benefits. As the proposal describes it, Southern California would experience “a giant lift in cultural literacy” that would be--let’s not forget--”tremendously entertaining. “