What is that line from Henry V?" muses Marilyn Fox, Artistic Director of the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, "Turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass'- that is what a play has to do. We have to take all of these lives and ideas and put them concisely into this form that has such impact." The highly acclaimed Pacific Resident Theatre (PRT) is one of the most respected theater companies in Southern California. Founded in 1985, PRT has accrued more awards for excellence than any other resident company in Los Angeles. "It is the theater that we all wish theater was," explains Eve Ensler, award-winning writer of "The Vagina Monologues." "I recently did a stage reading of my play 'Necessary Targets' there and had a fantastic experience. There was a spirit in the theater that you hope for as a playwright, where people are really thinking about the words and what the play is about. The cast was wonderful. The direction was wonderful. It was a real environment for thinking and politics."

Providing a creative forum for actors, directors, writers, and designers to commune in workshops and develop high-caliber productions, PRT explores the depths of both classic and new work, enabling great minds to live on and new minds to flourish. "This thing has what others envy," echoes acclaimed playwright Joe Pintauro, "It has that happening feeling to it. The comfort level is so high at this place that you get quite fearless. This makes your work feel new because suddenly, it is."

Under the guidance of award-winning artistic director Marilyn Fox, along with PRT's devoted staff and members, this not-for-profit company has blossomed from a group of fifteen into a three-stage theater with one hundred select members and almost two thousand subscribers.

"The leadership at the theater is very impressive," says Ensler, "Marilyn has a real vision. She is fierce and devoted. Her energy is very much at the core of what that theater is. I admire her greatly."

Fox has nurtured this theater, molding it to its current form and reputation as a place where the actor and the work is respected, where quality of work is honored over time and money, and where ideas and plays can take shape without the scrutiny of the public eye.

The Pacific Resident Theater, currently celebrating its twentieth anniversary, has watched its own hourglass ebb and flow, fill and empty - only to be turned over again and again. It is a theater that is continuously pushing and challenging itself, persevering and taking risks with each play. Time advances at the theater, but the commitment to great works, to great performers, and to great artists, that remains the same.

In commemoration of the theater's anniversary, the company's first production ever, "Happy End," with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill, has been reprised. This delightful musical will play through June and should not be missed. Venice had the pleasure of speaking with Pacific Resident Theatre's vibrant and eloquent artistic director Marilyn Fox about this uniquely wonderful theater.

Venice: Who established the Pacific Resident Theatre?

Marilyn Fox: The brief history of our theater: twenty years ago a group of the graduating class of the American Conservatory Theater (in San Francisco), which was in its heyday, came to Los Angeles. The top agents in town grabbed these people because they were as beautiful as they were talented. This group got together and said, "We have all these wonderful film and television opportunities, but we want to have a home where we continue to do what we learned how to do - perform the plays of the greatest writers." So they rented the Powerhouse in Santa Monica, and the very first play that they did was "Happy End," which I came to see.
Are any of the original members still around?

In fact, the actor who is understudying the main character in "Happy End" is the original guy. There are about twenty people from the original theater still involved, and the original theater had only thirty-five members.

How did you become involved?

I was teaching an acting class at the Powerhouse, and I looked pretty good that summer [laughs], so a few of the guys who were in the company said, "You should join this theater." I had a completely different background. All of these people were like Aryan racehorses, and here was I. After "Happy End" they did "Waiting for Lefty" by Clifford Odets. It's a Jewish, leftist, communist play. I came in and read for it, and I was like the real deal. They all looked at me like, "Oh my gosh, she's not acting." So I was taken into the company with a lot of love.

How has PRT changed since that first production?

Over the years we've taken over three storefronts on Venice Boulevard. There used to be a market on the corner. We made that into a 99-seat theater. We have almost two thousand subscribers now.

From the very beginning, the theater won awards. "Happy End" got two Drama-Logue Awards and tons of nominations. I think we've won over two hundred theater awards, including the Margaret Harford Award for Continued Excellence in Theater and three Best Season of the Year Awards in the last four years. The theater started out with a sterling reputation because of the background the people came from, and because of the work. In the years that have ensued the theater has gotten bigger, and there are about a hundred members now: actors, writers, directors, and producers.

Some of the people that are actively or peripherally involved in the theater are playwrights Edward Albee, Joe Pintauro (who is coming out next month to workshop a new play, "Karma Boomerang"), and Daisy Foote (the daughter of Horton Foote, whose "When They Speak of Rita" will open in the middle of May)."Happy End" has been so successful that we're keeping it running through June. So we'll have "Happy End," "When They Speak of Rita," and "Karma Boomerang" all playing at the same time, which is great because we'll have a new play by a famous writer, a west coast premiere by a female famous writer, and this twenty year anniversary production of "Happy End." And it's our twentieth anniversary. It's a time that I think we've spent the last twenty years trying to create.

What do you think has made PRT so successful?

To be really honest with you, I think the theater has flowered not because we've been trying to get big or famous, but over the years we've done many beautiful plays that really have touched the hearts of people. In this profession there tends to be a lot of self-centeredness and narcissism. The beauty of theater, when it's really great theater, is that you have to rise to something so beyond your own little [world] or else you really can't do it well. I think it brings out the best in actors. The plays we've always chosen are the theater of the greatest minds, the greatest souls, the most human experiences. And the kind of plays we do tend to put the performer in a place where they are giving rather than receiving, where the audience is the one that actually receives. So I think that's one of the reasons that the theater is growing so well.

Do you focus more on producing new works or classic plays?

We have produced a lot of classic plays, but we've made our reputation doing the lesser-done plays of great writers. More and more we're doing new work. It has always been my goal that the theater would produce new work, and now it's starting to happen - and it is happening in a very holistic way, where these writers are just becoming attracted to our theater because the actors are so wonderful.

When you workshop a play, does that entail working on a play that's in progress or that has already been completed?

There are two kinds of workshops at the theater. There is a workshop aimed at developing a play. The other way it can be used is anybody - like, let's say that I really, at this point in my life, feel that I've never played Juliet and I really want to play her [laughs], I could go in there, and if there was somebody as crazy as me who wanted to play Romeo, I could do "Romeo and Juliet." It's a nursery. It's a nursery in two ways - in that some rare, exotic thing can grow out of it, and in that your most infantile fantasies can come true, [laughs] You can do whatever you want in there. I'm the artistic director for our main stage shows. My job is to make sure that everything we present publicly has been treated with complete tender loving care, so that what you're coming to see is going to be something that somebody has really looked at and said, we have the right to ask you to sit here for two or three hours, that this is going to be something that even if you don't like theater, you'll want to come back- even if you don't consider yourself a theatergoer.

So there are really two wings of the theater. A public and a private venue. Both are aimed at being extremely artistic, but one is a democracy and one is a - I don't want to say a dictatorship - but it definitely has got somebody leading it, which is myself. But I tend to be very collaborative. I like when I'm working for there to be a lot of input from the other creative people. One person has final say, but I like that creative atmosphere.

So the theater is a space for development, experimentation, and performance.
One of the things about new plays is that they need an immense amount of love and care. I feel so much for playwrights because it's like having your hair cut. Once you do it, there's no going back. At a theater like ours, a playwright can truly have anonymity; it's like being out of town. Most playwrights have to suffer through a first production of a play somewhere where it is going to be publicly judged. There comes a very critical time where something needs a very gentle pull and needs to be looked at in front of audiences - because you can't really tell until you're in front of an audience how something is happening. And our theater provides that in a completely anonymous way.

And other members of the theater become the audience for the play?

Only our members and subscribers are invited. No advertisement.

What do you look for in a play?

I consider myself the average audience. I don't consider myself to be more intelligent or more perceptive than the average theatergoer, or even non-theatergoer. When we produce something, I'm thinking of how much joy the audience will gain from it. It's a lot to go to the theater; it's a commitment. When you go to the theater, you are being asked to think, to feel, to be in something live that's right in your face. So often when I go to the theater, I'm bored. Just because it's live, and just because people tell me that I am supposed to be having an intellectual or emotional experience, I don't have it. And I think most theaters promote people not going to the theater. So I am always thinking about that when I watch our productions, because I want the people to leave feeling either elated or that something has touched them. If you don't laugh or cry or something, then why do this instead of go to the movies or watch television? That is why I choose every play so carefully. I really make sure that we can cast it, because we work out of our company. If you're perfect for a part and you're not available, I wait. That's why I think that the theater has lasted, because a lot love goes into everything, a lot of care. I think that it's such a beautiful thing to say something that matters.

Tell us about your current production "Happy End."

"Happy End" is probably one of our least heavy productions. It's a comedy. It has political overtones, which is nice. The democrats love it, and it goes right over the republicans' heads.

Is it true that Brecht's original "Happy End" production was banned from the theater and that he didn't have it published with his works?

I don't know how it was. Brecht probably liked this piece the least because it's the least political. It's really an entertainment.

We try to vary between things that are deeply thoughtful and other things that are really new and modern. "When They Speak of Rita" is a very new play; it is also a very realistic play. It is about a woman in her early forties who is living in a kind of loveless marriage. She has a twenty-year-old son. They live in New Hampshire. Poor. A poor existence, and she's lost. She ends up getting involved with her son's best friend. It's like something you'd read about in the newspaper. But what drew me to it is the humanity of it, the simplicity, and the fact that it's a female writer.

To go back to something you were saying earlier: Why do you think that going to the theater is more of a commitment than watching a film or television show?

Good question. For the most part theater is about language. Even lesser plays. When you work in film and television, most of the time you're cast for exactly who you are, and that is brought to the forefront. In the theater, it's more like there is this thing out here [waves her arms out] that is much bigger than me. I have to get into it, so that I can understand what it is and then live through it in front of you. I have so much more that I have to communicate because there is so much language and nothing can be fixed. My whole consciousness, everything about me, has to get bigger so that you as an audience can see something very simple that looks like life.

You are watching an athletic event when you are watching theater, especially great theater. So when you go to that, you're risking a lot. You are risking that you are going to have to think for two hours, that people are grappling with a tightrope in front of you - they're on a tightrope. It's a little more like going to the circus, [laughs] It's like going to the circus, but it's a circus of words, thoughts, and feelings. Because of that, accidents can happen.

A lot of professional theater is deadly, because rather than risk an accident - an accident of casting, an accident of acting - most professional theater does not have the time to deal with the fragility of artists. They want craftsmen. It's better to be a craftsman in the professional theater because there is no time. You are working in marble. If you lop off an arm, it's gone. Whereas, in our theater, we work in clay. So if we knock off an arm, we'll just make another arm, and maybe the arm will go in a different position or we'll go, hey, you know what? I like it without an arm. I will take that time. Why do we have to open a play by an exact date? When we do it, let's make sure that it's something we want everyone to come see, rather than that we're just on a schedule. So that's part of my very varied way of doing things; it really has to do with that it hurts me to put anything in front of people that I wouldn't want to go see.

Where are you from? And how did you become involved in theater?

I am from Los Angeles. My background-my mother escaped from Hitler; she's from Austria. Her background is Austrian and Hungarian - which accounts a great deal for my taste in plays. I love the plays of the Austrians, Hungarians, Europeans. I love European plays and the sensitivity of those writers. My father is from Chicago. I grew up in L.A., never feeling really like I was an L.A. girl. The first time I went to New York I felt like, here are the people! I got interested in acting when I was fourteen. My first acting teachers were a man from the Moscow Art Theater, Benjamin Zemach, and his wife, Elizabeth Lynn, who was one of the Chekhov players. They were really from the old world of theater - where you enter and you are in magic; where you can smell it; it's like another world. They were my first inspirations. I've been involved with theater in this city for the last thirty years.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

The other person who has probably been the most important person to our theater for a long time is my partner Gar Campbell. A lot of the great work that we do has certainly been touched by his heart and mind. He is one of those people that does not take the limelight, but has a magic ability as an actor, director, and teacher. I think that a lot of the fairy dust has been created by him. I've just been really lucky to have such good taste in the people I associate with. [laughs] I've truly learned incredible respect for the great, great minds.

"Happy End" runs through June 26. Friday and Saturday, 8 pm. Sunday, 3 pm. The Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Boulevard in Venice. For reservations, please call (310)822-8392.

may 2005 Venice 93