It’s
the end of an era. The phrase is uttered so
casually and frequently these days that I find it almost without meaning. Yet,
when I heard it at the memorial service for Michel Jaroschy, founder of Capitol
City Playhouse and its managing director for 14 years, in reference to his
passing, I thought it apt and true. It may be that I was caught up in the
spirit of the service or was feeling the influence of the numerous tributes to
Jaroschy that I’d spent the week compiling for the Chronicle, or maybe
I’ve just been sunk in the minutiae of the local theatre scene for so long that
I’ve come to see any ripple in it as a major shift in the landscape, but I felt
that with Jaroschy’s passing, time had indeed closed a door on a period of our
city’s theatrical history.
At that moment I was unable to say precisely what period that was. But the
idea has persisted, leading me to reflect upon it more.
Looking back at Michel Jaroschy’s life and career, I see a man of another time
who loved the drama of another time. His devotion to theatre was rooted in
post-war social drama and the idealism of the Sixties. Jaroschy felt social
issues were important for theatre to address and that theatre was important
because it addressed social issues. Capitol City Playhouse produced its share
of musicals and comedies, but Jaroschy’s heart was elsewhere. I don’t think I
ever saw the man as animated or enthused about a Cap City show as when he was
staging an Arthur Miller play or a David Rabe piece or some other hard-hitting
kitchen-sink drama.
That particular kind of play has fallen out of favor with most local producers
now. We still see the occasional Arthur Miller work — Live Oak Theatre staging
The Crucible, Austin Community College doing All My Sons — but
it’s almost always one of his “classics,” rarely a more recent play. We see
even less of the realistic social dramas by modern writers of lesser standing.
Many groups have done a show or two in that vein during the last five years —
The Company has done perhaps the most — but by and large, our theatre
companies today have shifted toward dramas that are more experimental or
intensely theatrical, that bend time or break the fourth wall or soar on
heightened language.
Michel Jaroschy was a throwback in that regard, an abiding fan of a kind of
well-made play whose heyday passed decades before he opened Capitol City
Playhouse. He gave time to less naturalistic fare, but Jaroschy never gave up
on the kind of drama he loved, and the list of his productions testifies to
that — The Fifth of July, Agnes of God, Street Noise,
Streamers, Zooman and the Sign, Lips Together, Teeth
Apart, and Broken Glass just this year. While I know that Austin
will see future productions of topical dramas, I’m not sure that the city will
ever see another producer as devoted to them as Michel Jaroschy was.
More than his taste in plays, though, what marked Jaroschy as a man of an
earlier time was the way he ran his theatre. In part, I mean the way he treated
it as part of a larger community, a neighborhood, in which the businesses
around his were neighbors to be visited and supported. And in his business, he
was the neighborly host, out front, greeting his patrons — neighbors all —
and making them feel that his place was theirs. He could as easily have been
the owner of the corner bar as a theatre manager; hospitality was that
important to him. This sprang from his upbringing, I think, in a place and time
when neighborhood meant something, a source of mutual support and protection
for people sharing a small section of a city.
But the most significant thing about the way Jaroschy ran Cap City was his
off-the-cuff style. He was notorious for his perpetual juggling of funds,
robbing Peter to pay Paul (and often using a hot check to do so), staving off
economic ruin almost daily with 11th-hour monetary miracles. And no matter how
far in advance of production he announced a show, Jaroschy’s productions almost
invariably looked as if they had been slapped together hours before opening.
And to a certain extent, they were. Jaroschy’s was a free-form, improvisational
management style that seemed straight out of the Sixties counterculture: live
in the moment; go with the flow; whatever works.
Looking back at Michel Jaroschy’s life and career, I see a man who favored
passion over professionalism and today over tomorrow. I feel that at one time
the Austin theatre community favored those same things. In that time, amateurs
gave the best of themselves to the theatre despite the lack of compensation,
artists focused more on the show they were doing than future projects, and
there was no ladder to speak of, just a community of small theatres and
companies. That, I believe, is the era to which Michel Jaroschy belonged. Most
of the artists who powered the theatre scene of that era have moved on or
retired, and Michel Jaroschy was the last of them to run his own theatre. He
ran it in the loose, impassioned style of that time right up to the day he
died. And when he died, that era ended.
So what era are we in now? I had begun to formulate an idea about this even before I learned of Michel’s
death. It was prompted by a couple of thrilling experiences I had in the
theatre this month and my sense that they’re linked in some way to a new
approach to theatre.
On October 10, I saw The Gospel at Colonus, Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s
imaginative re-telling of the ancient Greek drama Oedipus at Colonus through a gospel service, as produced by the Zachary Scott Theatre Center. It
was a highly-anticipated production and could easily have suffered from
inflated expectations. But I found it to be the most exhilarating experience
I’ve had in the theatre all year. The show began on a note of deep,
core-of-the-soul emotion and sustained that richness of feeling through the
final chord. Its music was rousing, as you might expect of gospel, but the
vigor of its performance exceeded what I’ve heard on any local stage. And the
dramatic work gave me more empathy for and insight into the character of
Oedipus than any standard presentation of Greek tragedy ever has.
The production worked in what we think of as all the right ways: The actors
performed the material with honesty and technical finesse; the design and
movement illuminated the material; all the elements of the production worked
in harmony. But it went further. It took the resources at hand and pushed them
beyond what had been done with them before. Actors achieved new levels of
expression. The space opened up in innovative ways. This was a production which
was not only exciting for the material and for the way it was presented but for
the way it took the theatre to a new level.
As has already been noted in these pages, this was a production which Zach
Scott took years to develop. That time, and the thought, planning, and
deliberate development of resources that went with it, were instrumental in
making this the extraordinary production that it is.
The night after I saw Gospel, I went to Enfants Perdus at Hyde
Park Theatre. This show could hardly have been more different. Instead of a
unified narrative drawn from classical and traditional sources, presented in a
largely mainstream way, here was a fractured story line that was frequently
obscured by highly metaphorical text and wildly unpredictable, non-traditional
staging. Scenes were presented on a scaffold covering the face of the theatre
and in the alley beside its east wall. Actors swarmed over 43rd Street and
ranged over every inch of the gutted interior of the theatre. Flashlights,
fires, and film were incorporated into the production as texture and sources of
illumination. Performers shared characters, spoke actions, danced thoughts,
sang narration.
And yet, despite the differences, I found the piece similarly invigorating to
Gospel. Enfants also immersed me in the theatrical world which it
created and used virtually every resource available to its artists to create
that world. Here was a land ruined by flood and characters who had to venture
into alien territory to reclaim life for themselves. Their journey was full of
the unexpected, the disorienting, and it required them to find new ways of
seeing. The artists in the Frontera@Hyde Park company managed to translate the
characters’ journey into an experience the audience can feel. The dislocation,
the strangeness, is ours, too, and we learn new ways to live. As we experience
this, we see these artists pushing the boundaries of what they think and feel
and know how to do as artists. They challenge themselves and meet the
challenges.
As Zach did with Gospel, Frontera@Hyde Park did with Enfants.
The project, the company’s first commissioned work, was undertaken only when
the company had established itself through several seasons and had achieved
certain goals it had set for itself. The development process of the script took
the better part of this year. The expanded period for production allowed the
artists the room to experiment, to explore the non-traditional methods they
employ here. The pay-off, in terms of what they intended to achieve, is there
in every offbeat, fascinating moment.
Two thrilling shows, two shows which challenged their companies but which,
when produced, boosted those companies to new levels of artistry and technique.
Both are proof that careful planning and extensive preparation and development
of resources can make all the difference in a show, the difference between an
ambitious failure and being the transformative experience its producers intend
it to be.
A quick look around the Austin arts scene shows that this approach spreads
well beyond these two companies. The Austin Lyric Opera, which opens its 10th
season this month with The Magic Flute, has been a model of this kind of
careful planning and marshaling of resources. Its steady development of
artists, audience, and repertoire, has led to impressive organizational and
artistic growth. Their Tannhauser this year exemplified their process:
years of nurturing the chorus; bringing in experienced Wagnerian singers; and
developing their audience’s appetite for Wagner. This year finds the company
taking another step in a carefully-plotted plan: staging its first American
opera. Joe McClain and ALO are being no less careful about approaching their
first American work. Then there’s the Performing Arts Center, which just
celebrated a major coup in the successful commission and production of a new
work by European choreographer Pina Bausch, a cooperative venture years in the
making. Live Oak Theatre is in the midst of re-making the State Theatre into a
space that can serve as a major civic performing arts center. And still more
companies are undertaking similar development.
What era are we in? One in which those whose plan and take the time to marshal
the resources that their dream projects require are creating the most exciting
stage work. It’s a development in our arts scene that is welcome, and it’s
making this a genuinely amazing time. We’re always tempted to look back at some
previous period and say, “Ah, those were the days. That was when the scene was
really cooking. That was when the dazzling work was done.” For once, let’s look
at the present. The planning has been underway for years, so we’re able to reap
the benefits of it now. These are the days. The amazing work is out there. This
year. This month. This week. n Enfants Perdus runs through Nov 2 at Hyde Park Theatre. The Gospel at Colonus
runs through Nov 10 at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center. The Magic Flute runs
Nov 22-25 at Bass Concert Hall, UT campus.
This article appears in November 1 • 1996 and November 1 • 1996 (Cover).