I went to the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum last night, Dear Readers, to see Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine.
Attending theatre at the WGTB is always a pleasure and a bit of an adventure. It is located in Topanga, high up in the hills, with the western San Fernando Valley about six miles to the north, and Malibu and the Pacific Ocean about six miles to the south. It is as rural an area as one might find in Los Angeles County. Hilly, heavily wooded and sparsely developed, the character of the Topanga area has always been one of independence, with hints of funkiness and counter-culture evident.
Will Geer established the WGTB as an outlet for him and his fellow black-listed members of the theatre/film community to practice their art. They do four plays each summer season, usually one or two Shakespeare plays and two or three classic plays, be they antique or of more modern vintage. Various musical events (including an annual Woody Guthrie hootenany) and children's activities are held there, too.
The theatre at the WGTB is outdoors, in a sylvan setting. A semi-circular amphitheatre with wooden bench seats rises from the stage. The box office, snack stand, dressing rooms and other outbuildings are all in wooden shacks that remind me of the outbuildings typical at the summer camps I went to in my younger days. The people who run the place are all very laid back and pleasant. If one chooses to park in the small parking lot at the WGTB (most people park alongside the road), there's a three dollar charge collected on the honor system in a basket hanging on the gate by the path to the theatre. It's easy to forget that you are only fifty miles from downtown Los Angeles at the WGTB.
Watch on the Rhine was written in 1940 to encourage the United States' entry into the war then raging in Europe, and some have pigeon-holed the play as a pro-war polemic. The excellent performance last night led me, instead, to the conclusion that what the play is really about is our--by "our" I mean individually, and collectively, as a nation--utmost need to steer clear of complacency about social issues of great import. The family depicted in the play is initially shown as rather ignorant and self-centered. By its conclusion, after the family has had its eyes opened to the lengths to which people will fight against--and for--the fascist movement in Europe, the usually scatter-brained matriarch of the family, warmly played by Ellen Geer, wisely says, "We are shaken out of the magnolias, eh?"
