Critical Mass

Robert Ginty Reaches Critical Mass

By David R. Conner
September 20, 1994

Like a murder of upstart crows, the Irish Theatre Arts Center - located in the St. Ambrose Catholic School on the 1200 block of N. Fairfax Avenue - has, in eight months, earned a notoriety that the most vital theatres only attain after years of struggle. Congregating every Wednesday night since February, audiences filling the sizable St. Ambrose Hall have begun to spill over as considerably well known actors and directors present one-time-only reading of new or classic works - gratis. Yes, the performances are free; Artistic Director Robert Ginty finances the projects out of his own pocket. Even thought the Center has a negligible advertising budget, people in-the-know have turned these informal evenings into standing-room-only events.

I've arrived at the Center ahead of schedule. My apartment is only a block away, and I'm unaccustomed to actually walking someplace and arriving early. Ginty arrives a few minutes late. His tall, leading-male figure strides brusquely into the old St. Ambrose School Office - now the Center's office. Introducing himself with a large handshake and a deft but sincere apology, he turns to Nora Masterson - the Center's Managing Director - and ably picks up a conversation he seems to have left with her earlier. He speaks in frank, almost peroidless sentences: they need to find out how they can get more copies of posters for free - incidentally, they have to ensure that only a limited number of people get keys to the hall - he asks about the accounting firm that might be donating a printer - They probably won't? Too bad - Have I met everybody? Suddenly, we're heading for one of the Center's classrooms - now used as a rehearsal space - to begin our interview.

Those fortunate enough to have already heard about the Center have witnessed the midwiving of new works by playwrights John Ford, Noonan and Pulitzer Prize winner Frank Gilroy. Directors Jim Sheridan, Ron Maxwell (Gettysburg), and N.Y.P.D. Blue director Charles Haid have all dipped their hands into the Wednesday night pool, as have Television and Film Producers Marcy Carsey and Mort Abrams. In a coup almost as over-the-top as its material, Ginty staged a Brechtian reading of Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs, inadvertently husbanding a future adaptation for The American Center in Paris.

And the activity is only just beginning, Future scheduling includes and October 19th production of 2 Oui Butties - a play about Sean O'Casey featuring Dan O'Herlihy and playwright Brendan Dillion, a tentatively planned late-October playwrighting seminar with Jim Sheridan, and a yet-to-be-defined creative project with Kenneth Branagh.
With such lovely gems balanced atop a hill of like treasures, Ginty has tapped into an absurdly rich creative well, long hidden beneath L.A.'s seemingly arid landscape.
Ginty talks while I race to plug in my tape recorder. He has an Irish garrulousness that makes our conversation seem like a cerebral Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. His is a very articulate animation, however, and my allegedly acute mind finds itself wanting the fourth cup of coffee I'd decided against an hour earlier. Once we're settled, Ginty begins talking effusively about the Center. He is practically beaming, the savvy stage-father of a genuinely gifted child.

A few years ago, Ginty - better known as a film and television director as well as an action film star - suffered a "disappointing" distribution of his film, Woman of Desire. It was the last of a steadily increasing load of industry straws. "I decided that, (I'd) rather (not) repeat the same process that often happens, " Ginty says. "You get typecast as a director in L.A. as quickly as you do as an actor. It's kind of counterproductive to the creative spirit." Frustrated, he embarked to the East Coast to immerse himself in the healing waters of his old haunts, The Actor's Studio and the Yale School of Drama.

Diving back into the theater turned out to be a good impulse. After a year of directing, writing and teaching, he returned to Los Angeles with a renewed sense of purpose. It was then tat long-time friend Father Jack Beatty, a priest at St. Ambrose for seven years, offered him the use of the St. Ambrose parish.

Ginty revels in the story. "Father Beatty and I have know each other for a long time. I put him in a movie I shot several years ago 9gave him his SAG card, so I've got friends in high places). And this school is basically closed. The demographics of the community have changed, and there was simply no way to keep the school open. The community means a great deal to Jack. It's always been a Hollywood church because of its location (they used to call it Loretta Young's parish), and it's always had these connections with the industry here. We sat around talking about it - last Christmas, actually. He said, "look, I've got this space. Why don't you give it a try and see what you want to do with it?"
Father Beatty's generous - and unmistakably open-minded - gift has already brought a great deal of change to the Fairfax neighborhood, and if Ginty has his way, the entire city of Los Angeles will be profoundly affected as well. "Our mission, in a nutshell, is geared toward the Public Theatre of Joe Papp when it first started, or the 92nd Street Y. There's this whole cultural venue that's part of the establishment in New York; literature, poetry, music and dance. This Center is not a theatre. I have no intention of ever being a 99-seat waiver theatre or a showcase theatre or any of the other 148 theatres in this town. I want it to be something unique to this community."

Ginty seems capable of achieving his ambitions, if only by sheer dint of dogged, Irish will… and the fact that he seems to be connected to almost everyone. Having worn many industry hats, Ginty's professional network reads like a "Who's Who" listing. The likes of veteran actors Charles Durning, Bruce Davidson, Richard Gilleland, Jean Smart, Shirley Jones and Tony Danza have all contributed their energies with great enthusiasm and success. Actors James Woods, Gabriel Byrne and Jeff Goldblum are also slated for the fall.
Ginty is anything but demure on the subject. "I like to cast plays with stars - to get people in the door. The very best, solid, wonderful, character, theater people we can find. And they love it. For an actor, it's a great quick fix to get into the theatre. We might rehearse this once or twice, and they get up there and read it, so it doesn't take a lot of their time. And they get the rush of being in the live theatre. When the agents come in here, they see that their clients are being well represented. They don't care that it's too hot and it's not perfect. Our lights don't always work. Why should they? They were Orson Welles' lights from when Orson had a theatre in this town. Sometimes they blink on and off."

Pressed further, it seems the star-casting notion springs from deeper waters. "I was having such a wonderful time in New York. There's nothing like it out here. A lot of what goes on in the Los Angeles community is actors auditioning - they're not acting. There's a dig difference. They've really lost the sense of what genuine, real acting is about…. Actors are far more effective when they serve the material… when they serve the director - the way it was intended to be."

"The playwright is sort of the king here, in that we are here to serve them the best that we can. Once we accept the project, I'll help the playwright cast it with the biggest names we can get. Or if they don't have a director, I'll try to find them a quality, name director who gives them the time and helps the writer develop the material."

Someone pokes his head in the door. We are unceremoniously kicked out of the room to make way for a rehearsal. Out in the hallway, Ginty seems to be accosted by five people in as many seconds. He assures everyone he will meet with them within the half-hour. We decide to take an energetic tour of the parish buildings. Somehow, we end up in the office where we started. Our conversation hasn't skipped a beat.

Ginty's original impulse seems to be expanding exponentially. A classical actors' lab now meets on Monday nights, an Irish dance company meets on Tuesday nights, and Thursdays have been claimed by a one-act writing lab called The Playwrights' Group. The Center has also conducted evenings for the blind and hearing impaired community, as well as developed an outreach program with local high-schools.

Ginty's sights are not limited to the Fairfax zip-code, either. He has cultivated his already strong ties with Yale and UCLA, as well as The Actors' Studio, The Abby and The Williamstown theatres, exchanging ideas, plays and talents as a major regional theatre player. The Center's most exciting project involves developing a summer theatre exchange program between Loyola Marymount University and University College, Dublin. Loyola and the Center would host professional Irish actors, Loyola's students would host professional Irish actors, and Loyola's students would go to Ireland to study.

An older gentleman leans into the office. He seems a little hot under the collar. A parish payer meeting was scheduled for the classroom we just left, and the one-act group is going to have to go somewhere else. Ginty promises to deal with it in a minute. I imagine a line of petitioners forming outside the office door.

Though he is hoping for future donations and grants to relieve him of some of the Center's financial needs (they don't even have a hammer yet), his future plans could easily be mistaken for overzealousness. Ambitions include live radio shows for the BBC and Ireland Radio Network, musicals, operas, dance companies (if they get a better floor), and monthly classical evenings.

Ginty is quick to acknowledge the abundant resources of his immediate surroundings. "We have a very large Jewish community here that has supported this Center from the very beginning. A wonderful group of people. We're reaching out to the West Hollywood community… We want to get involved with something that means something to them. We have such a wonderful benefactor in this Catholic priest who has just gone out of his way to demonstrate his openness in terms of the material and the situation. It's been a real gift."

However the Center evolves, Ginty's creative life is going to be far different from what it was. His description of a recent Wednesday evening gives and indication of where he's headed. "The Hall was filled so that there were no more seats. People were sitting on the bars and tables. There were people standing outside the doorways like they were at Wrigley Field in Chicago, leaning on the banisters, watching the play from outdoors. Then I come over to the school and there's a company rehearsing Hamlet….. and then in the other room there's another group getting ready with the Shaw piece. Then in the next door, . they have the one-act people. This place was just rockin! And this was at 11:00 at night! The hall was full of babies running around in the back, and dogs…. And it should just stay that way. It shouldn't become some kind of regimented kind of thing. I like it the way it is. It's kind of like a Willie Nelson concert, somehow."

Ginty must run and disentangle the room-scheduling dilemma. He shakes my hand as abruptly as before, wishes me well, and strides off into the waiting maze of problems. I've never seen anyone happier. My head, on the other hand, is deflating, and I suspect my tape-recorder's batteries have died. But as I walk back to my nearby apartment, I fond myself humming Cheryl Crow's jubilant song; "All I wanna do is have some fun. I've got a feelin' I'm not the only one."
I think I'm going to like my new neighbors… I just hope they can keep the noise down.