Word: levene
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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LAST Saturday night, it was obvious that Jeremy Leven as tired. He had been working the box office; the actors had played their last scene a bit too loudly; the audience didn't half fill the theatre and those that did were none too responsive. Leven seemed to regard it all with controlled stoicism mixed, quite surprisingly, with more hope than desperation. He appears an unassuming man with enigmatic pale eyes and a small mustache. If, someday, someone makes a film called The Jeremy Leven Story --which is quite unlikely given the pervasive tenuousness surrounding the man's present existence...
Sitting in the darkened theatre, Leven must have felt the frustration of a pastor whose parishioners had simply stopped coming to services. Since the paid staff had been reduced to fifteen, including the five actors, three weeks ago, Leven's wife Linda had become a sort of ad hoc special assistant. Seated beside her husband, Linda launched enthusiastically into a discussion of one of her myriad duties. She explained how determined she was to develop a provocative art gallery that would serve as a stimulating gathering spot during the intermission. ("Not landscapes and classic nudes, but works that make...
...embraced her lover, suddenly paused, and then panicked, "Has the angel come? Am I with child?" Yet, the total effect of all the sketches remained erratic. One element of the show, the Lenny Bruce ballet, for example, aimed at slightly obscene visual non-sequiturs. On a more abstract level, Leven had inserted stylized mood scenes on topics like the mechanization of love. Leftist political satire collided with slapstick routines. Each new offering neutralized the effect of the one that preceded it only to be wiped out in turn itself. The show left the audience bewildered, unable to readjust its expectations...
...LEVEN'S approach to comedy is much more cerebral than The Proposition's frenetic mimickry would suggest. Having left behind the simplicity of his first show, Leven sought in The Light Company a "synthesis of every kind of movement in the theatre: non-objective, abstract, futuristic, surreal. We are to say--look this is a piece of stage, it is not real life. So, let's treat it in a context void of emotional restraints. Let's treat it like a cubist treats a piece of canvas. The Light Company should be a collage- type theatre, allowing a person...
...director's first mistake, however, was not to make the radical direction of the company clear. In fact, the whole project was misnamed. For Leven, The Light Company--obviously referring to its location--alluded to "Plato's whole thing about light, insight, and understanding." But to some of the public it originally sounded more like a trifle full of Gilbert-and-Sullivan freshness, just the right kind of thing to get ways from it all on a Saturday night. Leven and his backers never did figure out where those first few audiences came from. Largely in the 25-30 year...