Lithuanians See Themselves in ‘A Walk in the Woods’

“A Walk in the Woods” was a sensation when it played the La Jolla Playhouse in 1988; Lee Blessing’s play about a Soviet and an American arms negotiator who become friends despite the tensions between their countries seemed to touch nerves in subsequent productions on Broadway, in Moscow and London, and in a special single performance for senators, members of Congress, diplomats and Cabinet members in Washington at the Library of Congress.

Of course that was before the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States started to thaw into puddles, thereby dating the material, acknowledged Des McAnuff, artistic director of the Playhouse, who has directed all major productions of the play including its debut at the Yale Repertory Theatre (except for the London show).

But the political points were as potent as ever in the last production McAnuff directed in Vilnius, Lithuania, a scant two months ago.

The tension was high in the audience as the Soviet was played by a Soviet actor and the American was played by a Lithuanian actor--friends in real life who requested the right to do this play through the American Soviet Theatre Initiative. The subtext of friendship under pressure also found its parallel in real life a month after the production, on March 11, when Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Like the two arms negotiators, Lithuanian and Soviet diplomats have been engaged in a war of nerves ever since.

McAnuff is still awaiting news from his actors, who normally work in separate theaters--the Soviet in a Soviet theater, the Lithuanian in a Lithuanian theater. McAnuff sent them both letters through Robert Coe, a playwright now reporting for American Theatre Magazine on the Lithuanian and Leningrad productions of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“At first I was mildly curious about why Lithuanians would take such an interest in a play between Soviets and Americans given the tension between Russians and Lithuanians,” McAnuff said. “It only occurred to me gradually over the course of rehearsal that the friendship between a Russian and an American was being used as a metaphor for friendship between Russians and Lithuanians on a personal level. When the audience started responding, it was clear they weren’t seeing Soviets and Americans, they were seeing themselves. It cut a lot closer to the bone than I expected.

“I’m not sure that anyone saw it (the declaration of secession) happening quite so quickly, but in recent months, everyone saw this coming, everyone knew that it was inevitable,” McAnuff said. “There was even some controversy about doing this play because it portrayed a Russian sympathetically. It was very dicey.”

August Wilson, who just won his second Pulitzer Prize for “The Piano Lesson,” the Yale Repertory Theatre production which played the Old Globe before its recent opening to rave reviews on Broadway, has a new play at Yale Rep called “Two Trains Running.” It takes place at a restaurant in Pittsburgh in 1968 around the time when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The show has received good reviews about both the production itself (New Haven Advocate), and its potential (the Boston Globe). Will the Old Globe, which mounted productions of Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” as well as “The Piano Lesson” in association with Yale Rep, get a crack at producing this one as well?

Robert Wildman of the Yale Rep said no decisions are being made just yet. Wilson is busy writing the screenplay of “Fences” for Eddie Murphy, and Wilson’s usual director, Lloyd Richards, is still busy with the Broadway production of “The Piano Lesson.” But Wildman did say one factor in favor of the Globe is that his organization tends to show “a lot of loyalty” to theaters it has worked with in the past; the Globe has done as many Wilson plays with Yale as any other theater--the Huntington Theatre in Boston and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

Certainly there’s no doubt that the Globe is interested. Old Globe managing director Thomas Hall has already read the script for “Two Trains Running” and said, “We’re discussing it with Yale right now. As far as we’re concerned, any time August wants to come, we’re happy to have him. I am hopeful, if and when they’re ready to move on, they will give us careful consideration.”

Speaking of Wilson’s Pulitzers, his other winner, “Fences,” has never been produced in San Diego. The Globe missed out on the original 1985 production directed by Lloyd Richards. The Globe wanted to produce Wilson plays directed by Richards, and didn’t pursue “Fences” after Richards went on to subsequent Wilson works, according to Globe artistic director Jack O’Brien. The San Diego Repertory Theatre considered mounting its own production of “Fences” this season, but passed on it. Now the plum job of directing the local premiere goes to independent theater director Floyd Gaffney, a longtime professor at UC San Diego, who will direct “Fences” as a Southeast Community Theatre production at the Lyceum Space from April 26-May 20.

One Equity actress, Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson, will perform under a guest artist contract in this non-Equity production. The all-local production includes Antonio Johnson (who was in the San Diego Rep’s “A Christmas Carol”) in the lead role as Troy, the frustrated garbage man who played in the Negro Leagues in the years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. The cast also includes Damon Bryant, Joel Brisker, Shanga Parker and Grandison Phelps.

The Gaslamp Quarter Theatre isn’t sending out any press releases about its internal shake-ups yet, but James A. Strait, who directed the theater’s “Party of One,” now playing at the Elizabeth North Theatre, confirmed that he became the former producing director at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre as of March 31. Inside sources say that Will Simpson, artistic director of the theater and Robert Earl, set designer, are still on the staff on a day-to-day basis.

PROGRAM NOTES: Local benefactor Mandell Weiss will be 99 Sunday. For his birthday, the La Jolla Playhouse and UC San Diego will break ground on their newest shared facility Monday from 10:30 a.m. to noon: the Mandell Weiss Forum, a 400-seat stage that is scheduled to open in time for Weiss’ 100th birthday. The new theater is being built adjacent to its companion stage, the 500-seat Mandell Weiss Theatre. Weiss gave $1.2 million to each of the theaters that bear his name. . . .

Stephen Metcalfe’s “Emily” sold houses of 92% capacity for the North Coast Repertory Theatre, proving an even hotter item for the theater than its last big success, Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound.” Metcalfe, a La Jolla-based playwright whose next play, “White Man Dancing,” will premiere at the Old Globe on July 3, even dropped in and penned a few script changes that the director, Andrew Barnicle, swiftly incorporated into the production. . . .

Sledgehammer Theatre, which has postponed the opening of its production of “Hamlet” at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse to April 28, will present a Pay What You Can performance April 29. . . .

Starlight Musical Theatre will open its new musical readings project free to the public at San Diego City College in August and September. The likely candidates from the three they have already tried out out in private readings are “Kiss Me Quick Before the Lava Reaches My Lips” and “Alias Jimmy Valentine.” The third, “Abyssinia,” is under consideration for a full production; the staff considers it to be so polished that a workshop production would be a waste of time.