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Good evening and welcome to another of our seminars in there these programs offer discussions of trends activities and theater practice across the country our guests are outstanding artists and craftsman in every facet of theater here now to open tonight something Our it is our moderator Richard Parker that evening and welcome again to our panel discussions on theater practices across the nation specifically regionally here in New York that we could apply that term to Manhattan our guests this evening include Robert Maggie Beth who is the founder of the new Lafayette theatre Harlem's first professional theater which opened last year with Ronald Milner's who's got his own and the event also mark the debut of Robert McNamara the director. In his first career of an actor he's appeared in Tiger Tiger burning bright in a taste of honey on Broadway off Broadway in the Blacks the Merchant of Venice with a living premise and one year with a living theater and it was during his association with the latter group that he first began to make plans for organizing the new Lafayette theater also on our panel is a style Evans who has distinguished himself on Broadway and take a giant step in our land of Broadway and hollowing bride and she was the mother in the original American Place Theater presentation of who's got his own subsequently Reese recreated the role in that play opened Harlem's New Lafayette theater and again on a tour of New York state universities Her films include To Kill a Mockingbird in the quiet one she's been featured on television's Naked City other television shows as a former teacher in New York City public schools and a studied acting at the American Negro Theater and she's the director of our theater workshop and previously had an acting group called the pilot players which we asked her about our theater workshop first of all. There is a series of plays by ADAM BOLAND which successfully played at the American Place Theater and has now moved to another theater Martinique for general public run three plays another generic title of the electronic nigger and others and a son come home is one the electronic nigger is the second and Clara's old man and because Evans. Plays the mother in a son come home and be a neighbor one of the neighbors I believe in. This family in Cairo's old man. Robert mag Ben first of all the Lafayette theater. I just did a stab. In Harlem. Is In what state of condition I think when you say it was burnt down. How long had you been in the location I got burnt almost about eight months considering all the time. About eight months we took the place over. To spend four months fixing it getting ready. Opened spent three three. Months in production. The. Theater wasn't really. With the time that we spent I wasn't really ready for a winter so we had to. Evacuate for the winter time and leave it alone the heating system wasn't as good as it should have been and during that time of our being out of it not being there regular the fire occurred. We were in a ball room that was above. Of a consumer market and those kind of places places are notoriously dangerous places as far as like I think concerned so that's why you glad it burnt down. No I'm not it was a great old place we like that whole place it was it was a good building but the reason I asked that great fun stance really silly question is that it seems to me that it would give you an opportunity to. Start new quarters in a more comfortable place yeah that's true it does do that but. I don't know if it does do that we in the end will find new quarters in the new quarters will no doubt be better than the other quarters but you invest a certain amount of time and thinking in the place that you're in and if the place is an interesting place like that place was a place with some class and character and history of its own when you lose the place. You know if you lose a little love a little something is you know you have to reorganize Almost all right in lots of ways that you wouldn't really have to. Do it had you have the old place how large of the organization did you have or I'm talking about it in the past tense and I assume that it's concurrently operating we have we don't have a running company in the sense of there's no company on Souray at present but there are about fifteen or twenty active. We've been working with Morgan together for the last eight months six or eight months some of them worked in the productions others of them we're hoping to work in productions when we go back into production this year and we've been staying together working out together once or twice a week and. Looking forward to going on into a season what do you have in mind. This is a great way of asking you what the objectives are for the new law to theater or is it simply to present plays in Harlem or do you have some other ideas that you are trying to implement through managing a theater. Well my feeling about this is that. I've said this before so it comes out almost by rote but like the church the theater is a community kind of ritual and everybody doesn't go to the same church all churches are not exactly alike. The type of people who come to the church connected to the type of people who do the church thing. Create a certain kind of church both in terms of ritual and physical presence and everything you know I mean and terms and the kinds of things that are talked about there in the way they're talked about the way they're handled all of that I think is the same with the theater I believe that the theater is the same way that that it it's a kind of thing that is done by a group of people and that is participated in as far as audience is concerned by a group of people and those people are all kind of very much a part of the same thing or should be very much a part of this and I don't believe in the separation of the artist and the people who come to see him I believe that they're all a part of each other and if they aren't then something happens and the art begins to narrow itself down to a very small chosen group of people who. Are the supporters of the art so they appreciate it of the arts and everybody else has kind of looks and says Oh that's what art is but it has nothing to do with me and I don't know from it you know but And from my point of view that it would it would limit impossible for me to have a theater any place else doing anything else I may have had to have had a theater in Harlem Well the fact that it's located in Harlem does that preclude. Any audience member that wants to come oh no no no no anybody can come to that theater exactly as anybody can go to the beam of the abbey or the Japanese theater and right OK Oh right when you go to those theaters in their own environs the. It's like one kind of experience that you can't get even if they tour you know that's very true that's very true I think group of the the to reinforce this point you're making for some via this news who. May want to hear from a different point of view this this in a very simple way that's very true I remember when I used to go to movies Saturday afternoons. If I see a certain movie in my neighborhood and if I see a certain movie on Broadway. There's an entirely different audience connection and response this is I know this is what you're talking about of this is exactly I know what you mean and I think there's a lot to be derived from it by someone else from a different area going to another area to see something in its environment and speaking of that no one talk more about what you're doing with Lafayette theater the when I saw I had moved. Three plays at the American Place Theater and. These were successfully directed by you. Bullen's as written from interesting plays a one act plays there's an interesting thing about watching these plays even at the American place that I haven't seen him up in Harlem but. The fact that there's a kind of invited audience and at the night I saw that the audience seemed to be for the most part tuned. In to. What was happening on stage a little more than I'd say a seven more. Disparate audience that you might find even in that same area but in a public oriented This place is a subscription theater. Or a public apparently doesn't get him. What. How would that change with the acting have changed at all. With these very same plays in the theater up in Harlem from the way it was performed at the American place you're stuck. I don't know I only I've been the director I hypothesize about a lot of things go cause I don't really do it and that's a good way to get your voice started their style What what is your feeling about that. Well I've been in that situation. Twice I did the who's got his own Iran mail at the American place and then at the New Life yeah. And the difference is really then we were. At the American place beautiful theater lovely place. The people the audience seemed to. They've viewed us. What is this Who are they what are they trying to do they tried very hard to understand what we were trying to do and we felt that a lot of the energy a lot of the effort a lot of the but this a patient that we sort of expected from them to come with us. Well as expended in sort of viewing this. Is this and then when we did a town. They seem to have tuned in right away then you know what it is we were doing. And they were a part of it they were where headedness you didn't have to make a point big your lists hinted at something and they were they would be there now if this does something to the actor. It's stimulating it's. Well it's it's everything so that you feel the participation from the how do you feel the appreciation you know when it's going well. And this this is like a tonic to the act on the state yes I would imagine gives the actor the feedback in the connection with whom he's trying to reach anyway and add another dimension to his own acting range while he's involved in life in it and as. Bob said a moment ago that it's a thing involving the actor the artist as well as the audience it's a thing they do together and in that way when you really do it together back and forth we're getting we're giving and getting from each other it's a thing we can all do you know your way and when it's over it's not as if I'm here to show you what I can do well you know the premise you're setting up both. Bob and yourself is that if you act with indigenous material within the environment from which this material springs that there is a connection that is between the audience and the actor that you don't find or know if this were true I'm not suggesting a problem for you I'm I'm opening up just a question I want to ask. Ask you about it I don't get this connection if I watch a play on Broadway or see something by A.P.A. if I go to see something somewhere else within the Broadway. Area it is in its environment it's writing about. Indigenous problems presumably but I don't see this connection you're talking about on with the Presumably the same cast of audience that you're talking about because it's in Harlem because I want to identify with what you're writing about or because there are nuances and subtleties coming out that. Persons from another area region is not aware of so it doesn't connect but I don't see this connection even when it's in its environment on Broadway as I say what is I know maybe I'm wrong maybe I just don't see it I don't know from so I don't know I just say what I'm saying I could what I'm saying might only be. Valid in the situation in which I do it and it may have nobility fur anything out of the understand what I'm saying that much like some kind of spiritual doctrine perhaps. Much like I'm Irish yogis. Ideas about transcend transcendental meditation you know unless you were with him believing that and doing it you know you could say well what are you talking about I don't understand it you know and you're right you don't understand it it doesn't really mean anything but I only know for fact that it is not just indigenous material either some funny kind of thing about the reason for which you do whatever it is you do there's something about those who do you remember back in the old days when when they had a big band Cooley Williams and big and the great solo guys used to blow one note solo for thirteen minutes and variations on one note right and it with something about his doing that he wasn't doing much you know I mean was doing a lot of stuff you know there was something about his doing it in his. Digging doing it his digging you were digging going in there kind of creating a hole in the same thing which Ray Charles. Let everybody say yeah you know your way says yeah and he says Knight Yeah Dad if they do some funny kind of strange things James Brown does this really does the very same thing now that is some variation on that. You can't define you talk about it when you talk about the James Brown you know Ray Charles and some of the other guys you know you talk about the same music it's hard to define except that you watch the replays of the American place particularly close oh man and when there's a large chunk of negro audience in there and you can tell the difference you know that the white audience is sitting there saying one way and the black one is then yeah. You know and all this and at the end of the play it's kind of like. Yeah you know all the wipers I don't like what I put you know what kind of people everybody all all the all the all the black people in the audience who are relating to it differently. One is no one is no better or worse than the other and I think that's a good point to make because we're not talking about and this becomes confused because at least I'm not talking and I don't think you're talking we're not talking about racism we're not talking about racial subject and we're really not talking about that factor is setting it apart right into this is important to understand yes yes yes because for example. I know when this goes on the air won't be watching. Careering being interviewed by Sammy Davis Jr Now there was something wrong. With that should be a very interesting interview it was I would love it was honored it was on The Johnny Carson show but the point I'm making is related to what you just said about. Is that a organizer of us. Which I want to go into what I mean for our listeners the organizer of organizer of some group. Political Group what have you social group but the point is. Sammy Davis Jr was interviewing him asking him what point of ours is about and as he was talking about it he was really going on and on and on and talking and Sammy Davis Jr reaction to this was laughter and saying we'll man whale while you see everybody in the audience for most I was listening intently to this with a different kind of response but this is very similar to what really you're describing also in a related way because the fact that Sammy Davis Jr is saying whale whale means something else then the audience listening intently to what ideas. What he really expressing was he talking about least that to me is a relationship to what you're saying each person seeing it from his own home to view each point of view being valid no one is saying that that you have to pop your fingers right you know you don't have to say anything that's not you're saying if you watch east in theater let's say a few years ago you watch east in theater with a whole Cockney cast and they are and the play is about something really connected with East and East in characters it's very likely that West in London theater goers will not get the same flavor and not really get the same kind of warmth or connection with the East and cockney part by the way this close Old Man Of The only is there's a. I don't I don't usually go into what plays are about or anything I mean so I sort of talk at a handicap I guess for the listener but the point I'm making is our little man has its own flavor on one level it's entertainment on another level and it can really be appreciated on on two or three levels I think can be most appreciated course by those individuals who can identify with the nuances. And the subtleties that are being expressed in terms of slang in terms of behavior in terms of reaction so it has that that advantage really it has that in its favor and when you direct these plays. You're concerned with an artistic end is that a. Fair assumption. Or Meaning you're not are you concerned about bringing. What you just described to the for the that take care of itself or you can sort of experiment throw all right I think then. I want to say this about the plays though. Plays of the electronic maker isn't at all what one might think it it's about I would say that because we know that Leroy Jones has. You are I would say very close to Roy Jones least according to what I read but your writing is not at all like the Roy Jones and bare bones. Bones I'm sorry but that's right. It was a something a Jones name in the second play the electronic nigger the name Jones was on the league. On the board of course the obvious wonderment there is that meaning of that have kind of a humorous connection with Leroy Jones with the teacher there but the but the point of this rambling and what I'm getting at here is that these plays were really theatrical entertainment on a very high order and by that I mean leaving aside any consideration other than an enjoyable evening in the theater and so this is the real point that I am getting at and I'm trying to find out from you Do you get the same reaction from the audience watching them observe these plays and do you still as an actress get this feeling that come through to you that that these plays are being enjoyed on on the basis of real theatrical entertainment. Yes there is certainly. The one that dead is better that is best understood. Is. Most are very clear enjoy it we get much laughter from the electronic media. And sometimes I think Clara they do get the put They don't seem to partition participate in Clara's old man they don't seem to be very quiet sometimes but at the end you get there to reflect. A feeling of the impact. On the audience and you know they they have been with you they have been with you they couldn't keep ahead of you as you say that people in the audience who so I don't really keep ahead of you anticipate the humor you know that and sometimes we don't even get a reaction from the humor spot with most of the audience but at the end you realize that they have been with it all along but I would add to this to my impression is that the number of black people in the audience who are in the same position as a number of white press let's let's let's clear that let's clear that now everybody there are no statements you can make about any way of enjoying plays or about what the plays mean because they only mean that earlier only enjoy or enjoyed or appreciate or seen from that point of view for those people who see it from that point of view and when one really one of the problems I found is and I came up in the school that suggested that people have to be taught to appreciate the arts that there are ways of appreciating the arts we had music appreciation courses we had all kinds of things like what you look forward to appreciate I don't think that's true I think that people can said with a thing and be it a painting or a piece of music or a play they can sit with a thing and they can just sit and watch it. With no qualms about any of it you know I know no particular things about any of it and sit and watch it and see something and leave and had participated in their own way whether they could say that well I liked this part as as good it was good comedy or or that was more this meant something or anything that you just see what it is and it is what it is you know and one of the one of the you know you can say a lot of things about the place being good entertainment. From a purely mine and that may be true for some of the people there for others of the people who didn't like it they didn't like it there were those people who in the middle of Claire's old man got up and left you know and there were lots of them who couldn't get up and let leave but who wanted to and who at the end of the play didn't like what they had seen you talking about black and white and black and white and green and yellow It doesn't make any difference it does I thought I just so happens that those plays are about black people and a lot of the rhythms and tones and things are native to the people who are there there is also one other factor and this is the important factor for me at the Lafayette. There is some and there is some value to a group of people getting together to pay specific attention formal attention to the life structures through their own life structures and forms you turn on the television set any time you want to and you find stories and things about the life forms of white people who live in any place who do all kinds of things I mean the soap operas that this one that one's in the Old West and New Africa they've got problems they get everything you know all types of forms that your lives take you turn on the you know the radio it's the same thing but you don't find that with black people you know find that kind of attention being paid to the forms our lives take you find the only forms that are paid attention to or the only possibility for having attention paid to this poems is to strive for the form that is presented as the form that will be paid attention to that is the you know the middle class aspirant form which tends not to be in the end anyway although the television shows do every once in a while put a negro couple in there somebody in there you know and you get your little taste but it doesn't fit you know doesn't work it's very very important for the people who come to my theater and who came to the American places see this place to see formal attention being paid to life forms that everyone else rejects as being asked subculture ghetto culture and educated have about them and that's the way people live you know I mean. Nobody pays any attention to the Irish subculture of the Jewish subculture or that you name it subcultures it around Casey wrote about it oh yeah but not really a back and like day and this is equivalent of that this is the point I'm trying to least this is my feeling about right formal attention being paid to the life forms of those people who you feel. Important and I think it's important that we do that I think I think the fact that you know a dozen actors and some technicians and twenty thousand dollars I spent for that purpose you know to pay formal attention to the way people's lives some of the time not that it has to make any points about we shall overcome more kill whitey or anything you know it doesn't have to have that kind of a point to it it just has to do exactly what the church service does yes let us pray and then you sing a song then you go home you celebrated the existence of something that you hold valuable and in the same kind of way we do it in those two hours that we do place two things that come to the mind immediately. If the people who see these plays. Live in this environment live this way this is the way they live and talk and everything else. Then you want it formally structured so that they can see it in perspective and enjoy it or what is the point in if they already know why don't you why don't these plays going to knowing what your life is and knowing that other people respect it no matter what and they respect the fact that you are alive he would be OK if you are drunk like she plays in the last play or but you know you have to move this presentation out where you can be seen by the very people you're talking about are the very reaction of respect YOU WANT FROM WHAT WHO DO YOU who is supposed to respect the people themselves right now you're showing it in heart right here it has nothing to do with anybody else it has to do with the fact that we have not had that opportunity always been looking to everything else going to hear straight news and skin whiteners and fancy clothes and Cadillacs and you name it man every little thing we could get to kind of put some some something into a life that everybody says is forget it you know and then another point I want to make very quickly here because none of these plays are about any of these things that you are suggesting in terms of a culture a culture being set up as somebody somebody else culture of being set up as an example and you talk about here straighteners and skin whiteners and all of this none of this subject matter is represented in any of these plays by which is because the place deal obviously I know of it is obviously represented in the plays but it's there all of that is there exactly is there and then you talk about appreciation you see there what would it have to bring up with you were there levels. Obviously levels of appreciation by degrees of appreciation when you say that a person can sit and watch something. So he didn't take a course in how to appreciate Mozart or to. Going to sit and listen to a new supposed to enjoy it no he's not going to enjoy it he has to have some background but there are degrees of enjoyment and I would say you take a play by close all men. It's impossible to enjoy and appreciate that play in the full sense of the of what's happening on stage I let me reverse it and say it this way. Some members of the audience will get a delicious taste of something immediately just from just from into a nation just from a movement whereas another segment let's say of an audience will it'll take them a half hour maybe to come around to it maybe they'll never get it so what I'm trying to say is that it's very important to know what you're looking at Otherwise you don't get it you don't get the full sense of what is there you don't get the full flavor of what is there so the answer I mean I'm not even looking for an answer and I'm going along with what you stablished here that you're putting these plays on and I think you're putting on and how and where they will be most appreciated because everybody there for the most part will really know when someone comes into a room and he's walking in a certain way and he looks at somebody sitting at a table and he says. You know what you mean and I mean it's like it's a whole set up for what's going to come later now if you don't if you don't appreciate that into a nation you're not going to get it sort of thing I think true all right I mean why not sure he wouldn't beings like animals to know about things they know about things and they know them very strangely Now we tend not to trust them because we're very technological and we put the work things out so you know what you know you know what you know you don't go for that when I have a sense and I tell you nobody tells you that you say come on show me the figures you know I mean but the arts and a little bit different than those kind of spiritual things a little bit different that I would swear you know that everybody knows but they don't know they couldn't tell you what it was but in the sense of apprehension I can I bet it but we can I one of the things I said to the actors was the moment that there's a certain point to play where the audience should become mostly silent except for the if there's some black people in the audience who may enjoy it a bit too much but there's some moments with the people make it very silent when that happens you know you're doing the play right because they don't know what's happening but there's a funny sense of something's wrong here I mean with the you know with all of the elements that are played to put together that the thing just something's wrong you don't know what it is and you you figure you don't like just saying well you don't like the play or the play is bad or something you don't know what it is if people were much more able to trust just being with it you know that and without having to know you know the things I know I don't have to know what the guys about going to know what those tones are because it's something totally human in those tones that's Irish and Jewish and that's all the rest of it not quite the same way but there's something up about those kind of things that you can tell no matter what. Group is no matter what the ethnic group is and you you know that if you saw a Japanese do it in Japanese you just watched them with each other physically and you know it you know what it is you don't have to maybe maybe you're right. And maybe you're not. Going to get there because I know several people who watching this scene in the play and were never really aware of the undercurrent of violence that was apparent to come you see all right sure it's good but those who did not recognize what was happening immediately I'm just suggesting possibly that the intensity of appreciation is on OUR is greater just different I don't see actually yesterday and dramatically possibly different I I I wouldn't want to qualify I wouldn't young and then if I do that the moment that I do that I do acknowledge the fact that then those people that tell me you have mice teach your audience to appreciate the arts are right and I can't for the life of me believe that I just believe that you know. You just people take things a little differently because of their exposures that they're going to be some people are going to make certain things a little more a little a little quicker a little something or than others and sometimes not knowing is the best experience that I wish I didn't know so I could have been surprised by a lot of it you know you have to carry that you know what it is a few thought at all in a different context of a conversation over we leave at the point let's go on to something else from the first play a son come home which is the weakest of the three directorial A which falls on your shoulders. And now that the sun come up sun son come home still Evans second guess plays a mother and I and this is a play that simply traces the emotions the reactions of a soldier that has come back to his hometown apparently and things of changes mother belongs to Father Divine or I assume that was Father Divine's organization in there or I don't have a just and and he doesn't the whole thing and it's a flashback technique it's very interesting but one of the complaints. Is that. It was very confusing as to when the presence was here and when the future was here. I saw this about three old when it first. Just was three or four weeks ago have you heard any complaints like that and have you done anything to knowing I think I have in my. Computer. I. I don't know maybe in a year or so I might try that play again and lots of things to do with it I don't really believe that I was successful with this perhaps I should have been. I don't know why I haven't really figured out for myself exactly what to do about it now it can be that some writing things can be done about it it can be that some of the ways it's handled and production times. Well obviously the new I did in terms of production. Solutions you want to stay away from the obvious solutions of lighting and physical separation or some kind of. Spatial relation to play is not quite written that way although it seems that way when you watch it it seems like it's written a good deal more flashback e than it actually is that stuff really isn't flashback it's continuous you see and it's constantly continuous one of the problems was to kind of clarify how it stays all apart of the same thing you know a room made up of all kinds of other things that is really not a room really it never really happens they're never really there that the whole play may just in fact be you know. Fifteen minutes of the mothers sitting and thinking about something you know and really never have happened at all this it's very complicated because they do never none of the flashback things are ever really done as flashbacks written as you know like even though they seem to be you know they don't really quite happen in the sense that the flashback makes any sense then there's no particular relationship between a flashback and the present and the president is one yeah yeah that's a directorial comment you heard of it kind of weaves its way around and. I really didn't quite arrive at the best. Way of handling that that whole thing I know that's an interesting challenge I mean because it's something that it's a real a real problem and once it saw the play could come up I think to to the emotional level that you want because it's an emotional play I mean but as I view it it's a play. And it's just and it's simple I mean it's really very simple play while we're talking about those three places when I mentioned the like drop the electronic nigger which is absolutely hilarious I mean this is just no question of about it is as funny as a song get out and the electronic nigger is the cowardly simply wants everyone to be electronically oriented even to putting a microphone in a cadaver. An interesting thing because I want to what electronic impulses you would get and if I could ever do know. The cadaver loose to some juvenile necrophilia Yes You know but back to the new Lafayette didn't know you you got to grab it right so no amount of money from was it Ford Foundation or we have small grants from several foundations Ford Foundation Rockefeller Foundation the New York foundation the State Council and the art is this enough to see you through to getting a new theater number one that was last year this year we're dealing again and we hope to be helped again by the foundations. We are expecting the Ford Rockefeller Foundation to participate with us again where in the process of locating a new place we think we found the place we are probably going to have to buy it. Which is going to be and it is a regular theater No it's not a regular theater movie house it's was built as a movie theater and it has to now be done up a little bit so you know we're doing that and we expect to be able to do some of those things we have to. Raise money both in the community and outside the community and with my missions too because it's a great deal of money involved in trying to do it again this time. As one of the problems with having the old place burn down the old place would have done a lot of fun thing you know for very little money now we have to like do it all over again to the and we can't replace that place so you can't find that kind of place again you have to move on. We'll probably be involved in new plays only or are you going to attempt to do some of the standard repertoire Well we'll be a ball with new plays mostly we've been considering want to. Want to two possible that we've got good new plays we got a new one out a new three act play by ballance and. We've got an adaptation of a novel by Charles Wright. We've got a new play by. YOUNG GUY FROM on Detroit home we can't find no I'm serious I'm serious I got great play and this kid from Detroit but we lost track of him. Last summer he got his manuscript you know this manuscript and letters and we lost track of him last time we think he may have been killed or something and arrives because it is rumored that he may have been one of the guys who was killed in the riots but. The plays were written on a pseudonym. He wrote us always with a pseudonym and what happened was that later on a friend of Ed's told him that he knew a guy who was writing under the pseudonym and that this guy was killed in the Detroit riots and but it was because losers asked me I really don't know who the guy was he doesn't even know who the guy was you know he just knows the guy but you have to play it and it would have to play well in the the new Lafayette theater now as you move as yours continue the operation. Will you will your primary objective simply be to set forth a culture on stage so that it can be appreciated by the. Audience of that culture or will it in compas other aims other objectives other goals just where do you hope to go. I look at the theatre. You see you way you talk to me just now you talk to me and terms of kind of social things and perhaps even suggesting a little political things and talking about setting forth a culture for the people of that culture I tend to look at the theatre a great deal more as a spiritual kind of thing and I look at culture a great deal as a kind of a spiritual kind of thing and not really as something that one can manhandle much like architecture and other things like that so that. Will do plays and those plays will sometimes relate to two political things and sometimes they relate to social things and sometimes they're relate to strange religious things sometimes they relate to historical things all the time they will relate to the existence of black people. Now that is not in any kind of way to separate myself from whites because I you know I'm no particular. Need to separate myself it's just that I do go I go to I put myself together with those people whom I seem to have more connection with and more connection to so it's more positive thing than it is a negative thing like separating the separation that's right I understand I mean let's talk about for a moment about and I still would like to get your views on this. About the acting we see around us today and I want to asking you because basically on this program I always want to know what the viewpoint of my guest. Are concerning what they see I mean after all if you see anything or maybe you don't watch anything other than what you are doing but the acting you see there's a great dissatisfaction is far as I'm concerned about what we see on stage I can never be comfortable when I go to a stage as I can when I go to a movie because I know the movie is not going to make me work if it's good it's good but I have to I have to worry when I go to the theater because either way when the actors are going to speak a lot and I was I can hear or I have to worry that they're moving on economically so that it disrupts everything that I'm looking at and the worry about these things and there isn't going to be any place that can give an actor the collective. Total training in his craft and are you. Going to have any kind of a training program connected with the new Lafayette theater for your actors or you are going to bypass that old saw we we work together and we will in that sense be training together. And see if I remember when I was with a living theater I was like I'm not really one of the Living Theater people because I didn't really get along with the Living Theater people. Although I knew there was something very interesting about America that. I didn't remember until two or three years later when I began to could see it objectively that I understand what the value of them was and one of the values was that no matter what I thought about their acting per se their reasons for doing it. Always outweighed whatever it was it did I don't care how amateurish or how you know downright theatrical quote unquote They might have gotten some of the time they did it in good spirit and good heart. Seldom did anyone do anything at The Living Theatre to try to make a name or rep from self because that wasn't quite the place to do it you know I mean. And there is something. Very valuable about a person's reason for doing what he does but peculiarly when it's something like acting the majority actors you see you don't see them doing acting for its own sake you see them doing that piece of acting as a stepping stone to the next piece of acting as a stepping stone to the next piece of acting as a stepping stone to. Becoming the new Gregory Peck or somebody who was neurotic need you know I don't know if that even though I don't believe that anymore all the actors I know and all of the time I spent as an actor around I don't know if I believe that anymore I don't know if I believe that the neurotic need does not go any further than I I want to be rich and famous and I want people to see me and know me now you may psychologically that may have some kind of thing I don't know from psychology but what I do feel is that if a person does what he does for the people who care to do you know where they're doing it with him and the people who are here to witness they're doing it that you would accept a lot of things. A lot of what you might call lack of training a lot of a lot of things because of the spirit of the people who do it because of their dedication to their doing that not because of their dedication to their showing you anything you know how great they can be or how beautiful they are if you're a producer maybe you'll hire me next week when you're going to do your new show or something but because they are trying to do this thing whatever it is one of the ceremony or play or whatever the hell they're doing is and that I think is a like a dividing line I agree that there are you know lots of actors around who really don't know what they're doing as far as being actors are concerned. And I think the major fault is that what they think they're doing as acting is actually only trying to present themselves as actors and has nothing to do with what it is that they're really doing which is doing this play with these people for these people and that's all you know other things can get into that because the moment something else gets into it it changes the whole thing is not the same thing anymore Jack and the reverse takes place to. An actor can get involved in acting. When actually what he really wants has nothing to do with the theater with acting at all right and I think in life this happens to individuals whether they go into acting or whether they become I be seen operators or whatever it was by the way I still haven't have you seen anything on the stage that you liked recently other than the new Lafayette. Like this but let me I want to say something about that but then you know I don't I'm not I'm trying not to be too immodest but one of the factors in our doing who's got his own identity. I chose a girl to do the daughter who had never. Or done a part like that before she done some little things in high school that she had been studying with me and with Alan Miller who works with me when we were in Har you and also when we moved away from are you now one of the things are a lot of people particularly theater people said. When they saw the production was the weakest part of production was this girl and I was going to say they didn't understand this special thing about that part the girl in the play I don't know what the plan I didn't the girl in the play has a lot of anti Negro things to say she's a girl who after having. A father who's disappointment and discards meant and tragedy in life really heard him had a real rough hard father who related that to being black men in life that's where they are and that's not where I want to be she rejects them a chance this affair with this with this white boy which she confesses to on the stage now the way we did the play the play was done among everybody it wasn't just done with the mother with this daughter talking to the mother and the son talking to the daughter of the man it was we talked to everybody everybody had to do it was the ceremony of that card and. The only way we could get away with and have the audience stay with this girl was if they didn't ever believe if they could still trust. If they didn't ever believe that she was too hard legged and too slick you know that the moment the G.I. did one of those that everybody would turn to right up and knock everybody would say that girl again I didn't didn't like what you said but it's very good very good they like the girl. Because the end is that and all she tried to do was speak for these things she had no acting if I had got an actress there who could've acted up a storm they would have thought of that and it would seem that this is a performance and the girl who was there well good enough to do this performance is not innocent enough for us to forgive these things that's an interesting. Pragmatic concept in terms of how you choose actors to do what you want to do whether you choose someone who has no acting experience or whether you choose an extremely finely trained actor who can do it much better than the inexperienced person get more than you want one of the question before we close Robert mag breath and still ADAMS Do you like interviews. Like interview you like talking about yes I need a time something I rather talk about those kind of things to live people in the problems of having you know I'm trying to talk to you and I realize we're trying to arrange it so that we talk about things that spread through the radio waves and get to the ears of many people I like to talk to people more about well let's hope we are talking to people here will be talking to people all over the states with this program and I want to thank you. Our guests Robert mag the director and actor and all of the founder of the new love it or an actress still Evans for joining us on another seminar in theater that concludes for tonight's seminars and clear your comments on tonight's program or suggestion for a future broadcast should be addressed to Richard Pyatt W N Y C New York one hundred zero seven and make a note to be with us again next Monday evening at ten for another of these seminars in theater.