Robert Falls does not exaggerate when he says that his appointment as Goodman Theatre`s new artistic director marks the beginning of ”a new era”
at Chicago`s oldest and largest resident playhouse.
Falls, at 31 one of the brightest and most imaginative of young American theater directors, already is mapping out the major changes he expects to bring about when he leaves his post as artistic director of Chicago`s Wisdom Bridge Theater and takes over full time at Goodman next Jan. 1.
”The emphasis,” Falls says, ”will be on the main stage at Goodman, with large, classical works–and musicals.
”I absolutely believe Chicago actors can change the face of classical theater in this country. We`ve shown how exciting our actors can be in contemporary plays; now is the time for testing our best actors and directors in the best classical roles. I want them to take on the big roles and the big plays. And resident nonprofit theaters such as Goodman should play an increasing role in developing important musicals for the stage. That excites me.”
At the same time, Falls says, ”I want to keep the Goodman studio theater active all the time, perhaps with two complementary series, one of four original works produced by Goodman and another `discovery` series featuring American and European experimental groups.”
To aid him in this work, Falls has enlisted Chicago actor/director/
teacher Frank Galati as associate director, responsible for directing one main stage show a year and participating as an actor, adaptor or co-director in another main stage production. Galati, whose confirmation in the post is expected as soon as he realigns his teaching duties with Northwestern University, also would be involved with Falls in play selection, casting, and policy matters, as well as fund-raising and speechmaking on behalf of Goodman. ”I`m attracted to the great European theaters,” Falls says, ”where there`s a collaborative vision, aimed at one goal but with each director achieving that goal in his own way.”
Gone from the Goodman, undoubtedly, will be the New Theatre Company, the resident core of playwrights and actors conceived by former artistic director Gregory Mosher that enjoyed only an abbreviated season before Mosher left Chicago last summer to become artistic director of theaters at Lincoln Center in New York.
Brought in to the theater, however, if Falls` plans go through, will be such innovative American directors of national importance as Peter Sellars, Des McAnuff, JoAnne Akalaitis and Richard Foreman to work here with Chicago talents.
If these projects seem simply blue sky, it should be remembered that Falls has shaped a remarkable career and is well qualified to make things happen.
A downstate native and alumnus of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, he arrived at Wisdom Bridge in 1977 when the little second- floor theater at 1559 W. Howard St. was almost on its last legs. Taking over its leadership on instant notice, Falls–in partnership with executive director Jeffrey Ortmann–built the Bridge into an internationally recognized institution with a list of 9,800 subscribers.
Curly-haired, bearded and perpetually rumpled (his one bow to formal dress is a brown cableknit sweater he originally wore in a television commercial to promote Wisdom Bridge), he is an omnivorous reader and viewer of all things theatrical and has an encyclopedic knowledge of what other resident theaters and directors are doing across the country.
With Bertolt Brecht`s ”Mother Courage and Her Children” in 1981 and Shakespeare`s ”Hamlet” last season (a production he will restage in February at the downtown Civic Theatre as his last project with Wisdom Bridge), Falls showed his desire to test himself with the big plays of the repertory; in his direction of ”In the Belly of the Beast,” which toured to Washington, D.C., Scotland and London, he achieved national and European acclaim; and with such assignments as his recent direction of ”Orchards,” a collection of short pieces adapted from the works of Anton Chekhov, for the touring Acting Company, his work is being seen across the country.
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The Goodman, with its larger resources, should give him the opportunity to extend his artistic reach even farther. He is particularly keen on developing major musicals, and for some time now has been nursing the hope of mounting a revival of the classic ”Pal Joey.”
He talks now of setting up networks of theaters that can collaborate with Goodman in important productions. ”I want an exchange of ideas for our theater,” Falls says. ”We should provide the world view for our audiences.” To achieve his ambitions, Falls realizes, he first must weather some
”difficult patches” as the Goodman board of trustees attempts to eliminate the disheartening $750,000 deficit that hit the theater this season as a result of overly ambitious and failed projects last year.
Falls is confronting that problem with his typical direct approach, a combination of pragmatism and enthusiasm. He has asked to become a board member himself, ”so that instead of `we` versus `they,` there`s simply `us,` ” and he has advised board members that his season plans should be divorced from the separate demands of eliminating the deficit. Already, he has proposed extending the rehearsal period from 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 weeks.
”I wouldn`t have taken the job,” Falls says, ”if I hadn`t been certain of the tremendous energy and enthusiasm that Irv Markin (board chairman-elect of the Chicago Theatre Group, Goodman`s parent organization) and Arnold Silvestri (board president-elect) have for the theater and its future.”
To reach his three-year contract (which will start him, he says, ”in the neighborhood of” $75,000 a year), Falls, beginning late last summer, went through three interviews with the 12-member Goodman search committee, headed by Silvestri. Even before the committee narrowed its choice to a virtual tie between Falls and Galati, Falls had suggested a director/associate director arrangement with Galati, because, Falls says, ”I didn`t want artistic loneliness in the job. I wanted someone to share in thinking about the theater in particular and society in general. And Frank`s versatility as a theorist and as a thinker are extraordinary. It`s a theatrical relationship I`ve always cherished, but I had never been able to grab him for more than a short period before. Now, he`ll be a key player in a number of things at Goodman.”
Galati, offered the role of associate director, happily accepted, and the search committee, in effect, got its two top choices in one nifty package. (If the job offers had been reversed, Falls says, he would not have accepted the associate directorship.)
As blunt and youthful as Falls appears, he is nonetheless a man of true passion and sophisticated vision in the theater.
”My favorite quotation on the theater,” he says, ”comes from the director Liviu Ciulei, who said that the quality of a community is defined by the quality of the social, political and esthetic questions its theater asks.”
With Falls, you may be sure those questions will be urgently asked at the Goodman.