Stylized Life: Culture

The ART moves in a new direction

By Bella Whiner
Stylized Life Editor

Cambridge's American Repertory Theater shook the generally staid Boston cultural scene by announcing this week it was planning a bold departure from its past course.

The ART's Trustees and its Harvard overseers, tired of underwriting ever-growing deficits and staring at rows of unoccupied seats at Harvard's impressive Loeb Drama Centre, have given former impresario Robert Lovewood his walking papers and announced a change of course for the troubled theater compay. 

A representative of the Trustees, who wished to stick it to Lovewood without having to reveal his identity, told the Spy that the ART would in the future "try not to suck."

According to this source, the Trustees had concluded that the public was staying away from ART productions in droves because "frankly they sucked."

"Sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally, but they invariably sucked so bad and so hard that even pathetic ART drama students couldn't stand to watch them."

The ART's tradition of suckiness had been established years ago by its long-time leader Robert Brustein, who had caused the ART's previous incarnation to be run out of culture-starved New Haven for what one Connecticut theatre critic termed "generations of suckositude."

While ART apologists had hoped that the change of scene from grim, bullet-riddled New Haven to the comparatively serene and bosky precincts of Cambridge would have improved the quality of the repertory company's productions, even long-time ART supporters admitted that the tradition of sucking continued and indeed seemed to intensify.

To mention just a few examples of ART suckiness, long-suffering ART audiences were treated to productions of "Richard III," featuring naked oiled-up men, "The Iceman Cometh," featuring naked but not oiled-up men, a clothing-free "Waiting for Godot," and even an all-male all-nude production of "Romeo and Juliet," said to be faithful to the Elizabethan tradition of men playing women's parts, albeit in the ART's version, starkers.

The last straw may have been the ART's disastrous attempt to appeal to family audiences with a production of "Charlotte's Web." The effort backfired badly when parents complained that the lovable barnyard animals of E. B. White's classic were being played by naked men in chains.

Said a source close to the ART's Trustees: "We're looking for a new artistic director who shares our vision of a repertory theatre that doesn't suck." In the meantime, the ART is mulling over productions for next season including a new "Henry V," staged in 15th century costume, a production of "The Importance of Being Earnest," in which the women's roles are played by women and a version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in which all actors remained fully clothed throughout the play.

A subcommittee of ART Trustees is charged with finding a new artistic director who reportedly will have "as little in common as possible" with the fired Lovewood. Said one member of the Committee: "This may take a while."