Word: samshak
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Though nearly all of the actors have come to the Atma as novices, the reviews indicate anything but amateurism. Lawrence Rubins and Robert Jones, the two mainstays outside of Samshak, directed four of the top twenty plays of 1968 chosen by Boston After Dark. (Leonard Melfi's Birdbath, LeRoi Jones' Slave and Dutchman, and Edward Albee's Death of Bessie Smith.) Samshak calls them the "two best directors in this town." They both came to the Atma as long-time friends of Samshak and have stayed for the entire two-year history...
...ACTORS perform as a tightly-knit ensemble, all tied together by the tough demands of this unique theatrical experiment. "It's a family in a sense," commented Samshak, "Not that we all sit down and eat supper together, but there is a real communication between the actors. That's the greatest thing about the Atma." Frank McCarthy described the group spirit as "a very comfortable life...
Despite these stumbling blocks, the Atma perservered. Samshak was convinced that it would never fold as long as he kept producing good theatre...
...producing good theatre is thing more than a goal to Samshak. It is the essence of his whole involvement with the stage. To him, the social import of a dramatic experience is only secondary to its dramatic rightness. Although it may be possible for someone to deduce a social motif in the plays performed by the Atma, Samshak claims no such intention. "We're not carrying any political banners," he stated, "we're just doing the plays that we can perform best...
...SOCIAL importance of the Atma enters into the picture in a subtle manner. For Samshak, the best thing that can be done with a play is to understand it. The Atma production of Zoo Story, he said, had taken the tragi-comic character of Jerry, divorced it from the comic limitations of the lines, and molded it into a densely emotional comment on American life. It was only at this intersection of the theatre and the world outside that the drama had relevance...