Trinity Repertory Company in many ways has helped define the Providence Renaissance more than any single entity. Mayor Vincent Cianci, Jr., who years ago was reluctant to champion the arts, now is a 24-hour advocate, using it as a basis for the city’s cultural, social and economic development.
At the beginning, 1964, what became Trinity Rep was housed in a church building at Trinity Square. It imported an artistic director from New York City, Adrian Hall, who over a quarter century built the company to Tony Award status. But in his waning years at Trinity, during turbulent times, the theater fell out of favor with some and Hall with the board. He was fired, and Trinity was propelled into a period of flux, under the direction first of Ann Bogart and then Richard Jenkins.
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Five years ago Oskar Eustis, a Los Angeles import (actually raised in Minnesota near the Guthrie Theater), was brought to Trinity, in possession of the same passion as its founding artistic director, Adrian Hall.
Adrian Hall and Oskar Eustis first met a decade ago in Los Angeles. They have developed a friendship and a kinship, based on their common passion for Trinity Repertory Company, and the celebration of the artist as part of the community.
Last week, Providence Business News arranged for the two to sit together in Eustis’ office at the theater, and talk about Trinity’s evolution, its importance to Providence, and the involvement of our business community. The interview follows:
TRINITY’S CHAMPIONS: Adrian Hall and Oskar Eustis.
PBN: From my perception, Trinity has come full circle from the days when you (Hall) created what was here to the present when we’re again fulfilling that inspiration, a return to the initial artistic vision with Oskar’s arrival and work here. Is that a correct premise?
Hall: Oh, I think so. In the ’60s, coming out of the 50s and the 40s, there simply was no American Theater. The commercial theater was dying and we had known for a very long time that something had to be done, or else we were going to (die), like in the 1930’s, when it just seemed the theater would no longer exist. And Mrs. Roosevelt came along and the WPA and Hallie Flanagan (of the Federal Theater Project) and Orson Wells came out of that, and then the war came – World War II – and afterwards because we were the victors it was a feeling that oh the commercial world would reach its zenith right after the war. And indeed it did. Tennessee and Arthur Miller and Edward Albee. And then in the ’50s it got better and better and we produced probably what we think was the great American drama, Streetcar Named Desire, Death of Salesman and that sort of thing. The commercial factors were saying over and over, if it’s a trickle down theory, we will give you the road company and if you live in Two Fingers, South Dakota you’ll get the 10th road company of what we’re doing. Then John Kennedy was killed and the whole guilt trip of the country. Then Lyndon Johnson’s vision of a Great Society and suddenly it’s like the arts have been ignored for a hundred years. And this richest of the nations. So the National Endowment was created. And that was in ’64, ’65.
I was working in New York – off Broadway at the time in the ’60s and had a little career going. It looked like I would go the way of everybody in the world, but I didn’t want that. I really wanted to be part of some kind of movement that would give us an American Theater. And so, I began to shop around and people began to shop around, the few of us off-Broadway that were kind of doing things. I came to (Providence) and the reason I stayed here even against overwhelming odds was the fact that Providence had once had 11 legitimate houses. And the old Albee Stock Company was one of the most famous stock companies in this country, and was a resident stock company. Spencer Tracy was the leading man.
Providence was in a great state of decline. Providence came back because they had not knocked down — as they do in Dallas, Los Angeles, — all of their buildings. They held onto them. There was a kind of sense of authenticity in the city that I loved.
By that time I was kind of helping with the National Endowment, but I had an entree from Providence because of Claiborne Pell. Once they did a study earlier on. They said, Adrian we have not good news, not optimistic news. They said, ‘ You’re not ever going to have more than 2,000 subscribers in this town. This town is dead. It’s true.’ In the early years – well, it wouldn’t have lasted two years or three years, but for Roger Stevens and the endowment getting involved and with Claiborne’s help. Interesting things happened here, some that are just simply legend and some that are lies. One of the things was – I was not the flamboyant, clever thing that people liked to say I was. I was a person who really wanted a life in the theater, and I really wanted my family around me and I really wanted it to be a community. And I didn’t give a rap about taking it to Broadway, and consequently we were asked to come to New York. We were asked to go to Europe. But if we never had really hard times; had I not left after 25 years, then it seemed that thing was going to go all the way under. Had that not happened, I think the community might never have totally realized what was here and how important it was to them.
Oskar what have you brought here in your five years, or what have you brought that was missing here for a number of years?
Eustis: I think it’s simple. Dick Jenkins saved this company artistically. Dick Jenkins is a better director than I am. Dick Jenkins is a great artist. This company would have gone under if it wasn’t for Dick. Dick never wanted to be an artistic director. He took it under duress. He took it as a public service, in a way that makes everything I’ve done look selfish and careeristic. He took a job he didn’t want for the sole purpose of saving an institution he knew was incredibly important. And he saved it. And then I came along, the only reason I came along is that Dick said to the board of directors that I’m really going to leave whether you find somebody to replace me or not. He kept saying find a replacement for me. The board kept saying we will someday Dick. They wanted him to stay. When Dick really left and I came along — I’m really only the second person who’s running this institution who really wanted to be running this institution. In that way; I consider myself very much Adrian’s heir. And I like being artistic director. I want to be artistic director. Everything Adrian said about the importance of this as a home for artists is what I believe and want to dedicate my life to. That is really not something new, because that’s what Adrian did. But what’s new about it is that I’m in this incredibly fortunate situation – and I literally think I’m the only person in America who has this situation – I am of a generation of theater artists in an age that Adrian created. The National Endowment for the Arts was formed when I was six years old. I’m the first generation of American theater artists who has had the non-profit theater to grow up in. The generation before me didn’t have it. I’ve had it. I grew up in the regional theater – the non-profit arts that Adrian and Bill Ball and Tyrone Guthrie and Zelda Fichandler and Gordon Davidson created and it’s what I’ve always wanted to do.
Let me get back to the thing I think is unique. I have been able to inherit an institution that has a real artistic identity. That’s not true of any other regional theater in this country. And I know them all very well. Every regional theater in this country has turned into an institution whose identity changes as the artistic director changes. A new artistic director gets brought in and suddenly they do something different. Then five years later a new artistic director gets brought in and they do something different. It is what this institution tried to do with Ann and it was a complete failure. It blew so incredibly fast, somebody must have been running the film in fast motion. It is because this theater actually has an aesthetic identity. It has an artistic identity. It’s not just a building. It’s not just a play factory. There is a set of principles here that I get to inherit. Of course, I’m changing to some extent. But the most important thing, there is a tradition I’m inheriting. That’s what the great
European theaters have. That’s what the Royal Shakespeare Company has. All of those great European Theaters. It is understood that they’re not supposed to reinvent themselves when somebody comes out of Yale with their new MFA and says now guess what I’m going to do. It is understood they are serving a function that is much more deeply rooted in the city than that, in the community. And that’s what I feel I’ve got here. It’s an incredible privilege. It’s great
It’s not just a tradition I’ve read about it. It’s not just a tradition about the shows I’ve seen. It’s a tradition that’s in the room with me when Barbara Meek is rehearsing. It’s in the room with me when Bill Damkoehler, Cynthia Strickland, Tim Crowe and Barbara Orson are in the room with me. It’s an oral tradition. It’s a living tradition. I don’t know anybody who gets that.
What was the meaning of Trinity to the community, when it was founded, and what does it mean to the community today?
Hall: It’s obvious from the support Oskar has and has found and has been able to pull in around him. It is obvious he has moved the community of great suspicion of artists as nomadic gypsies into an area of this is ours. It’s not an American kind of individual pioneer who beat back the wilderness. It’s not that kind of pioneer spirit, but it’s something that’s really rooted in our past, the fact that the Albee Stock Company, the remnants of that are still here – the most famous stock company in the United States, where resident actors lived. The fact that that was in Providence. I had a lot of training and Oskar had a lot of training, but in different kind of approaches and how you do and why you do it. And simply, a person educated in the ’40s in this country is not the same person (as one) who was educated in the ’60s in this country And it really is true that just the right person appeared at just the right moment for this to be carried into the next millennium.
Eustis: That’s what I want to say. We have a mayor who is beating the drum about the arts as a leading thing for the city.
Hall: Twenty-four hours a day.
Eustis: Well, 35 years ago, Adrian was beating that drum. The idea that the arts was central to the life of a community is the drumbeat that Adrian has been beating from the moment he arrived here. It is what this theater was built on. The legends and lies. A lot of them are connected for me with Project Discovery, which to me is still the lifeblood of this theater, 30,000 high school kids a year. That means that we’re having unbelievable — and have for a couple of generations now — penetration into the foundations. I think it has lifted the self consciousness, the self confidence, the esteem of this community, exponentially. I know it connects (to business).
I think you look at this state and this city right now. You look at Trinity, you look at Brown, you look at Rhode Island School of Design, and I moved here after 15 years in California – San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are nothing if not arrogant, snobby cities in some ways – I feel like this is an incredibly sophisticated city – it’s smaller than anyplace I have ever been – it’s got incredible intellectual resources, it has artistic resources, it has increasingly great physical beauty. It’s a great place to live.
Why has the business community changed its perception?
Eustis: I think it is relatively simple. When Adrian was here, over 25 years Trinity won the battle as fundamental to Providence’s identity. I think it wasn’t until the shock of the few years after Adrian that the financial problems came up that everybody faced the fact that Trinity wasn’t going to be able to stay a part of this community unless the community rallied around it. And that story is a national economic story. The money that came from the National Endowment, the money that came from the Rockefeller Foundation, isn’t there anymore. Adrian is quite right. What this theater floated on financially for a great number of years was national money. It came out of New York and out of Washington, based on the fact that theater professionals know how important a theater it was, so when there was money for general operating support for the theater as a national profession it came to Trinity in very large numbers. Conversely when all of that money went away – and it went away — there was a very unlucky confluence, which as that happened just at the moment that Adrian was leaving here that Trinity became so obsessed with its own management and leadership issues, which went on for about six years, between the time Adrian left and the time I came here. There was real uncertainty about the management and leadership of the theater.
Hall: Turbulence, turbulence.
Eustis: And that was exactly the period when the national money was going away. Precisely at the moment when the local business community and corporate community had to step up to the plate and replace the money that was missing from the national level was the period when Trinity didn’t seem to have its managerial act together in such a way (that) it looked like a pretty dicey investment for a few years. And all I needed to do was to put a management team in place that actually could balance the budget.
Hall: It was quite a bit more than that and you know it.
Eustis: But a lot of it was that. As soon as they trusted. Ann’s year was a hurricane, and Dick had no ambition to be a professional artistic director. He wasn’t going to straighten out the business. You know it’s a job. It’s a management job. Adrian did it. This place was not in financial catastrophe when Adrian left. When Adrian left there was a nice endowment. It got spent. We still haven’t gotten back the endowment that was here when Adrian left. All that needed to happen was we needed to get professional management and prove that we were a responsibly run organization again. The business and corporate community has been really more than willing to step up to the plate. It’s been really exciting. I don’t think I had to convince them that Trinity was important. I think they already knew that Trinity was important. I didn’t have to call twice to get appointments.
Hall: Only because it almost went away. If that had not happened I don’t believe they would. Because I’ll tell you something. We had the best management that was available. The first manager that was here was Donald Shoenbaum, who later managed the Guthrie for 20 years. He wanted a two-year contract in those days. Today, if somebody wants a two-year contract, you’d give it to them because it would mean you’d be able to keep them. In those days, the idea was, the board said well we can’t guarantee that Trinity is even going to be there next year. We can’t guarantee this, so we can’t personally take the responsibility of giving somebody a two-year contract and so Don just left.
The arts may be the chief way we interpret our history. Through theater, dance, music, all the performing and visual arts we are interpreting past and present civilizations. Do you see this as a major gift that the arts bring to society?
Eustis: About 500 years ago the Medicis made what looked like a very modest investment in the arts of their city, which has turned into the most incredible economic development plan that Florence could possibly devise for themselves. It’s what makes a city a city. It’s what gives it its sense of identity; that’s what draws everything to it, not just people but also business. It’s the culture that makes the place.
What’s next for Trinity, were does Trinity go from here?
Hall: Where does any American theater go from here. The only thing that we’ll be able to live out this millennium with is the fact that this least likely project of the 1960s, we’re going to make into the next century, certainly. It’s really not for us to say this is where the theater is going. Because we don’t know. The past that we haveThe heart of this institution is right down there in that hall, with a cup of black coffee – now I don’t guess we let people smoke in the same room – in the old days you couldn’t even sit in the rehearsal hall because of the smoke. You can’t praise this man too much. He really did respect what he’s got. Love of his task he’s got. And so consequently he loves the past of this theater. And also pride he’s got. He just says over and over, there’s nothing like it in this country. There’s not another one. Even though everybody set out to create resident theaters, they weren’t able to hold it together.
Eustis: We’re going to continue to put a huge emphasis on the development and training of young people. What I’ve got to make sure is this company is an oral, living tradition that gets passed on to the next generation of artists. We started to do that and we’re going to put a lot of emphasis on that.
And the second thing, I just got the news yesterday, coincidentally enough, that the end of next season they’re going to release the rights to Invention of Love. So, I hope we’re going to start our 2000 season with Adrian coming back and directing this marvelous play by Tom Stoppard, Invention of Love. We haven’t made a deal yet. We’ve talked about it.
A deal you’re interested in?
Hall: Oh very interested. And like — what is it that old comedian — George Burns said? If I’m booked I can’t die. Now it’s a couple of years I got. I wouldn’t break a booking for anything.
