The Actors’ Gang Members of Tim Robbins’ The Actors Gang
are currently performing the play "Mephisto."
By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Contributor
Tim Robbins is an acclaimed Hollywood actor and director who has
helped create more than his share of memorable films over the last
decade. Thus, the obvious next step in his ever-expanding career is
to direct a play at the local theater ensemble he helped found 20
years ago.
That may not be the logical step that most of Hollywood’s
stars would take, but for the UCLA alum Robbins it is the obvious
choice.
“I need to do it,” Robbins said. “I’ve
been directing plays since I was 12 years old.”
His current project with the Actors’ Gang, which he
co-founded and for which he is now on the board of directors, is
directing the play “Mephisto,” a World War II-era play
by Arianne Mnouchkine adapted from a Klaus Mann novel.
The story features a German actor who yields to the Nazis in
order to save his career, and then has to justify to himself the
morally reprehensible state he sees rampant in the world around
him.
“This play’s about choices. And what
responsibilities we have in the choices we make,” said Ned
Bellamy, an actor in “Mephisto,” and longtime friend of
Robbins, in a phone interview.
Robbins discovered the play while on a work trip in Paris. He
read it and felt it was something that should be embraced. And
since then, in light of recent developments in global politics, his
selection has proved particularly relevant.
“I feel like Tim is somehow subconsciously connected to
the pulse,” said Cynthia Ettinger, who has performed with the
Actors’ Gang on and off since 1983, in a phone interview.
“It’s not only a reminder, but there’s a
certain mirror to look at,” Bellamy said.
The play runs concurrently with the Gang’s other project,
Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” directed by
Robbins’ French mentor George Bigot. Both are being designed
by Tony Award winner Richard Hoover and the Gang’s resident
costume designer Ann Closs Farley.
As these two plays mark the commencement of the 20th anniversary
season of the Actors’ Gang, the Gang is seeing its vision and
scope broaden and grow, while maintaining that vital energy that
emerged 20 years ago among a group of ragtag UCLA theater
students.
“For me there’s more freedom to explore and discover
than there is with film, because you’re dealing with a daily
budget anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 a day, and you don’t
have time to play around. And you don’t have time to fail.
And you don’t have time to experiment. And in the theater you
have that luxury, and to also discover things organically and to
try things and fail,” Robbins stated.
The current enthusiastic revitalized spirit exuded by Robbins
and Bellamy can be traced back to the group’s promising
beginnings and the odyssey that surviving for 20 years has taken
the group through. The Gang started many years ago as a tight-knit,
crazy, fun group, but has since that early period gone through many
changes, according to Ettinger.
The changes for the ensemble have been both personal and
professional, and included a recent period of disillusionment for
many members.
“I’ve worked with Tim more professionally than
anybody else,” Bellamy said. “There was a while there
where Tim wasn’t really as involved as he is right now. That
was hard for me. (We) sort of lost the ordained rightful leader,
and that haunted us for years. But it feels good now.”
Robbins himself explained how he was distressed by the condition
of the theater both physically and administratively upon his
return, and how a critical fundamental respect for acting was
lacking. This has since been markedly remedied.
“He always had the leadership qualities. He’s very
charismatic,” Ettinger says.
It is that dynamic essence, which seems to have helped maintain
the value of the Actors’ Gang and Tim Robbins’ own
career, as both have attained massive success in the last two
decades. Robbins’ ability to steer himself and his friends
away from the creative traps that cause many less successful stars
and theater companies to implode on themselves has proved itself
with an imitable gusto.
“He’s just not into acting like a movie star at all.
All the reasons he is a star are the reasons he’s good in the
theater. It’s funny to be out with him and the way people are
with him. It’s really foreign to us,” Ettinger said.
“He’s a father now and that makes him different.
He’s a man, he can be more nurturing.”
That genuine devotion to life and the craft of acting seem to be
the essential elements here, and the fact that the paths’ of
the Actors’ Gang and Tim Robbins have converged once more
with “Mephisto” typifies the openness and effort both
the group and the man are driven to embrace.
“We’ve been able to put aside things that have made
us comfortable in the past … In a way, we have gone into a
laboratory, working in a way that is very challenging and
frightening,” Robbins says. “Our commitment is sincere.
I’m having a great time. I’m lucky to be directing a
play.”
THEATER: “Mephisto” opens Nov. 3,
and previews begin Oct. 31. It closes Dec. 14. General admission on
Fridays and Saturdays is $20, other performances are $15, and
student admission is $10. For tickets, call (323) 465-0566.