A Director for All Ages

Director Peter Brosius takes theater seriously.

He was assistant director of Germany’s Schauspiel Koln in the early ‘80s. British playwright C. P. Taylor was a friend and mentor; among his teachers have been Charles Ludlum, Joseph Chaikin and assistant director under Brecht, Carl Weber.

He created a body of Off Off Broadway work. For the last five years he has been director in residence at Robert Redford’s Sundance Playwright Institute and he has worked on play development at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and South Coast Repertory.

He staged the 1990 Los Angeles Festival production of “The Undead” as well as Ionesco’s “The Lesson” and Beckett’s “Eh Joe” at the Mark Taper Forum’s “50/60 Vision” festival.

And, he’s directing the mainstage premiere of Milcha Sanchez-Scott’s epic play “El Dorado,” opening Friday at South Coast Repertory.

But Brosius’ belief that theater can “initiate dialogue, light a fire, be a thorn under the skin, an intervention, a critique, an echo that bounces around the back of the head” is particularly reflected in the kind of theater to which he has dedicated the bulk of his professional life, the kind that is widely regarded as a pejorative: children’s theater.

As the director of the Mark Taper Forum’s youth theater, the Improvisational Theatre Project, since 1982, Brosius has earned respect for his multicultural explorations of global, political and social issues.

“Bocon!” mixed Central-American mythology with a political refugee’s stark reality. “Robinson and Crusoe” was an absurdist fable from Italy about making human connections in the face of fundamental differences.

“One Thousand Cranes,” Brosius’ powerful signature work about a child’s fears of nuclear war, has traveled as far abroad as the Soviet Union.

The latest Improvisational Theatre Project show, Peter Mattei’s “Freedom Song,” is a seriocomic fable about repression. Inspired by Balinese culture, it uses shadow puppetry, stylized movement and music in an oblique celebration of the Bill of Rights. It is currently touring Southland schools and will present performances for the general public Saturday at Cal State L.A. and April 27 at the Wadsworth Theatre.

In conversation with Brosius, a youthful, long-haired 39 year old, it’s evident that genuine passion infuses his work. He respects the actors he works with and praises both the Taper and South Coast Repertory for their support for artists. Humor and frequent introspection vie with an intense political and social activism; emphatic opinions are offered with deceptive mildness.

For instance, he doesn’t like the term children’s theater.

“This is a culture which, for all its ostensible reverence for youth, treats its children badly,” he said. “It lacks dedication to the arts, to education, to children’s services. That’s part and parcel of the kind of denigration that happens when you (say) ‘children’s theater.’ ”

Brosius refers instead to a “youth” audience that is “alive, free, open, hungry, eager and human.” His definition of youth theater is “work that challenges the artist; fully produced work that uses every element of the theater in its highest state to bring people into the extraordinary world of imagination. So why not do something that matters?

“To do a piece of entertainment is a lot of work. If you’re not invested in it, why bother?”

It’s a misty morning at Bell Gardens Intermediate School. The chilly, musty-smelling auditorium brings back childhood memories; some things never change.

Brosius is taking a quick break from thorny “El Dorado” rehearsals to check in on the 70th performance of “Freedom Song.” The Improvisational Theatre Project actors and crew greet him with jokes and embraces.

At 9 a.m., 650 chattering 5th- and 6th-graders troop into the room and take their seats.

The lights go down, there’s murmuring at the sight of a blue-green, bamboo-framed screen; then quiet. Composers Maria Bodman and Cliff De Ariment begin to play music with a vaguely Asian/Central American feel on keyboard, pipes and percussion--gongs and cymbals.

Shadow people, trees, houses and dragons play against the screen; live actors tell the story of a repressive mayor, intimidated villagers and the itinerant artist who is a catalyst for change. Movement and noises are exaggerated and comic.

There is laughter. Brosius sits with the children, attentive to both actors and audience reaction. He makes notes about “little technical and timing things, the choreography of some of the puppet images, a new beat Rick (actor Rick W. Perkins) has added which I like.” He will also ask one actor to grow back his beard--it was shaved for a resume photo.

When the show ends, most of the audience leaves, but some classes stay behind for an eager question-and-answer session with Brosius and the cast.

Afterward, Brosius talks about their reactions.

“One is always conscious of dealing with a profound range of understanding. From the littlest ones, who are going to understand things on a visual or a musical level and get the basic story, to the older ones who are going to challenge you in terms of its depth, its meaning, its clarity and articulation of performance.

“You’re hoping that the work is first and foremost a piece with ideas, but that it’s also--since it is this radical thing called theater--introducing them aesthetically to a series of possibilities, bringing more beauty into their lives.

“So, we’re not just taking them a piece about an artist, we’re also taking them a piece which hopefully is art. What’s interesting, curious, is that both ‘El Dorado’ and ‘Freedom Song,’ deal with people with a profound relation to the Earth, and with imagined landscapes that are violated.”

A woman lies wrapped in a cocoon of tulle, writhing on a black platform eerily lit from below. With frantic movements, she emerges from the gauzy material, an ethereal, dark-haired figure thinly clad in white.

She stands bathed in light, arms outstretched. There’s a hush in the dusty rehearsal room; this is a climactic moment in the script.

Then, she deliberately breaks the spell; the silk cocoon slides down completely to reveal baggy pants, kneepads and pink slippers. Lifting her voice to the rafters, she belts out a line of “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Cast and crew break up.

Brosius smiles at actor Christine Avila. “Can we just do this with the lines?,” he asks patiently. It’s a light moment in an early “El Dorado” rehearsal--Avila’s musical outburst has briefly leavened Brosius’ search for access into the heart of this difficult play--”to make the size and the poetry and the passion of this piece live.”

Sanchez-Scott’s work is a complexity of political repression, elemental upheavals, magic realism, rebirth and transformation, set against the decimation of the South American rain forest.

Brosius has spent two years with the playwright on the work, from the play’s earliest incarnation at Sundance through its development in South Coast Repertory’s Collaboration Laboratory and its Hispanic Playwrights Project.

“When Milcha writes about the Earth,” he said, “she’s writing about the deepest kind of ecology. Not paternalism--not ‘We need to protect the earth’--but ‘We need to listen to the Earth and learn from it.’ I like that it is so true for her. As true as her blood.”

In another crucial scene, Christine wears a gown of rough muslin bristling with pins, long lengths of the stuff attached to her shoulders--wings that extend to the far corners of the stage. When she says her lines, Brosius isn’t happy with the effect. “It feels arrogant, it feels pompous.”

They run through the scene again. And again. “No, it doesn’t work,” Brosius says. Composer and sound designer Michael Roth agrees. “Too ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’ ” Stage manager Julie Haber makes a suggestion and costume designer Lydia Tanti contributes an idea. Eventually, the effect is scrapped completely.

For the rest of the morning, there is an ebb and flow to the rehearsal process. The light box passes approval, a rain effect has potential, lighting and blocking must be considered; the actors get a rudimentary feel for an unusually raked platform.

Throughout, Brosius works with several actors, urging them to find “any way we can make this our own text; go deeper, deeper.” By the time the lunch break comes, the fragmented process has found cohesion through moments of enlightment in staging and text.

Brosius is aware that audiences may find “El Dorado” challenging. “We’re dealing with a language which is not the everyday spoken language, with a symbology that’s not necessarily part of everyday life; with a foreign landscape and passions at a level that is not part of the everyday discourse.

“With all of that, we want to make sure there’s a way in, that there’s an understanding. That whatever the aspects of magic, of extremity, the audience is able to follow us into that world and that it’s a world they’re going to enjoy their journey into.”

David Emmes, producing artistic director at SCR, describes the work as “immensely timely,” adding, “One of the things appealing to us was that it’s a play of great scope, with an epic quality to its themes.”

Brosius said he is “hungry” to do more work with the language of Beckett and in the arenas “of profound passions” found in such plays as “El Dorado” and “Eh Joe.” But he said that youth theater is equally important.

“One has to do work that is essential to one’s own life. There’s something thrilling about dancing between audiences,” he said. “I immerse myself in projects that matter to me--and I hope matter to the audience--whoever that audience is.”