Interview: Tim Robbins' Improving the World - One Play at a Time

Tim Robbins truly relishes the value and reach of theatre; and he persistently works to disseminate it throughout the world.

We got a chance to talk with Tim, co-founder of The Actors' Gang and its current Artistic Director, the day after his latest directorial project ORWELL'S 1984 opened. See any of the productions Tim has directed and be challenged only not to be entertained, but thinking about what the play is saying. Even the more innocuous or innocent Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM enchants while communicating the subtle message of juggling familial loyalty and obedience with one's own desires or ambitions.

At the other end of the entertaining spectrum - farthest from innocence; Tim views the depiction of violence on stage as tricky. When The Actors' Gang first put on ORWELL'S 1984 in 2005, Abu Ghraib monopolized headlines. In that production of ORWELL'S 1984, the captured traitor Winston received electroshock a number of times. "When you're dealing with violence on stage, you have to be very careful not to create a reality that forces the audience to check out." In the present production, most of the electroshock techniques have been substituted with mind control methods, such as the constant screaming and verbal abuse from the jailers. "When you see someone zapped on the stage; you can react, you can wince, and have sympathy for the person being attacked. But it's not doing anything to you - other than upsetting you. Whereas, this mental torture, as an audience member hearing something repeated over and over again; you have more of a connection with what the experience is like for someone that is undergoing that kind of interrogation."

Tim picks theatre projects "that's relevant to our society we're living in; either raising questions that should be raised, or shining a light on something we don't think about too often."

This year, The Actors' Gang has opened their Season of Justice 2016 with THE EXONERATED, ORWELL'S 1984 and HARLEQUINO: ON TO FREEDOM. "All have a question about how justice is meted out by those in power."

When Tim first received Michael Gene Sullivan's adaptation of 1984, he thought Michael had made some of the chapters up. "Before I contacted him, I read the book and I realized it was a very faithful adaptation. And as I was reading it, I was not only shocked as how relevant it still is, I saw such a parallel between what was happening in our society then (Abu Ghraib torture) and what Orwell had written about in 1948."

THE EXONERATED was first produced and presented in 2002 in collaboration with The Culture Project in New York. THE EXONERATED tells the true stories of six wrongfully convicted death row survivors, including Kerry Max Cook. The current production has three of the original cast members from 2002.

Tim's curiosity into the origins of commedia dell'arte's stock character of the harlequin compelled him to write HARLEQUINO: ON TO FREEDOM. "We're been workshopping and training actors in commedia dell'arte for 30 years. We have always used the stock characters in our workshop in our classes as a way to free the actors to create a character out of whole cloth." Although much is written down on the beginnings of commedia dell'arte when it emerged as an art form in 1530s; the harlequin, the clever servant, has no mention until a hundred years later. Tim wondered if the harlequino character wasn't a satirical reaction to the African slave trade that started in the late 1400s. "Spoils of war, those from the losing side, were put in servitude, slavery. If you look at the first mask that survived, there's African features in the harlequino mask. We started questioning." And the seeds of HARLEQUINO: ON TO FREEDOM were sown.

These three plays are in the process of running three weeks each, before going out on tour. "We needed to give them runs in Los Angeles to work out the kinks. But in the fall we're continuing the Season of Justice by bringing them back for their full runs." THE EXONERATED will tour to Nebraska. ORWELL'S 1984 and HARLEQUINO: ON TO FREEDOM will be in the Spoleto Festival in Italy. The Actors' Gang staple A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM this year will be going to Romania.

Tim enjoys touring the world. "Last year we were in two cities in Spain; Leon, France; Milan, Italy; Porto Alegre, Brazil. The year before that, we were in Shanghai and Beijing, China; Hong Kong; Melbourne, Australia; Greece; Columbia; Argentina and 35 states of the US in over 80 cities. I think we're one of the few real ensemble companies that tour the US."

Tim finds one of the most satisfying aspects of touring is the incredibly enthusiastic audience responses. "We sell out wherever we go, more so than when we do in Los Angeles." The troupe also holds workshops for the local actors to show them how to put on shows themselves. "We present theatre that is accessible, immediate, relatable to their own lives. One of the aesthetics we stay true to - we want to be able to fit all these productions in just a few suitcases. We don't travel with semi-trucks. We don't travel with sets. It's raw theatre. Theatre that anyone can do."

Tim, who's been critically lauded and awarded, downplays his acting prowess. "I got lucky in the acting field. Soon realized after scoring my first part that this was a lot easier way to fund theatre than delivering pizzas. So I started working more and more in television and movies. It was a balance. But I used them as a way to produce theatre. So throughout my career, I have always come back to The Actors' Gang as a way to remind myself of what is important and what I originally intended for my career. Theater is connecting with a raw emotion that you can share with a group of strangers, a temporary community that you create.

"I'm always looking for things that are inspiring that I can direct. Really, the decision to direct is whether I want to tell the story. That's been the bellwether because I understand that when you do do this, it's a commitment. You have to really care about it. At least, I have to really care about it. So all three movies (Bob Roberts, Dead Man Walking, Cradle Will Rock I've directed are stories I really wanted to tell. All the theatre I've directed have been stories that I feel are part of our mission in The Actors' Gang."

In the 1970's, Tim enrolled in the UCLA drama department with ambitions of directing. Per department protocol, directing students directed scripts from playwriting students. Tim convinced the department powers-to-be to direct instead Alfred Jarry's UBU THE KING written in 1902. Buoyed by its success on campus, but soon to be graduating; Tim persuaded his cast to continue performing UBU THE KING off-campus. "I found a theatre. We didn't have any money at the time. I convinced the theatre to allow us to use the space at midnight after the play that they had rented out the space to was done. We ran for six months, a huge hit. All the critics came and loved it. That's what really launched The Actors' Gang, the success of UBU THE KING."

So the genesis of The Actors' Gang came about. "I co-founded with a group of about ten actors from UCLA. There was a group of us, kind of punk rockers. We wanted to stir things up a little bit. We wanted to create theatre that had the energy and commitment of punk rock. We weren't finding our spots within the theatre department, let's put it that way. By the way, we had some great teachers there at that time and the environment was fantastic. There were a lot of really talented people that came out of those classes."

Now in its 35th year of producing thought-provoking theatre, The Actors' Gang continues training actors in their three annual eight-week training sessions that co-artistic director Cynthia Ettinger runs. "She's a great teacher. People go through this process and after the third session of this eight-week training session, they're eligible for membership in The Gang. That's when we decide whether it would a healthy and productive relationship going forward. They're associates for a year and as such, they're eligible for casting. We don't do auditions. We train actors in a specific style and specific way of working. Then we workshop new productions. We workshop every Sunday night, the whole company for five hours usually revolves around a theme or a piece of written work that we want to explore. Out of the workshop emerge the cast. Open for everyone to observe. When a person kicks ass in a certain role, everyone's watching."

Using the workshop approach with everyone learning various roles has its advantages. "Before we did the production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, we had already workshopped it off and on for a year or two. It's a way to see what really gels with the company at large. We went into the rehearsal process for MIDSUMMER's with 15 people and we didn't cast it until two weeks before we performed it. Right now each one of those MIDSUMMER's cast could play any role in it. One of the sad realities of doing theatre in Los Angeles, often times your actors having to take other work to make a living. In that situation, we're able to cover pretty easily because we have a breath of talent that's capable of covering for people."

Asked about his big night at the Academy Awards back in 2004, Tim couldn't totally remember that night he won the Oscar for his supporting role in Mystic River. "It was right at the beginning of the show. It was too fast. I didn't have any time to think. All of a sudden I was up there. I think it was the first award they gave away that night. And, Yes, it was a really great night."

Tim brings up another memorable evening. "Two summers ago, we were playing in Spoleto, Italy with A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. First night, there was a standing ovation, and the head of the festival was yelling, "Bravo!" They had a cocktail reception for us afterwards. A couple of people came up to me afterwards and had seen Peter Brooks' version and were telling me that mine was as good, if not better. I had this revelatory moment where I realized, 'O My God, that this is exactly what I wanted, what I envisioned my life to be, a director on the world stage, travelling all around the world producing theatre.' Funny to be at age 55 in Spoleto, Italy having the realization that I finally arrived."

Asked for his advice to budding artists, Tim responds with what he tells his current UCLA students, "If you are going to be miserable not being an actor, then you should do it."

For The Actor's Gang 2016 schedule of shows and classes, go to www.theactorsgang.com