• The Publisher’s Notebook •

Thespian Thermodynamics

BY ANNE SOBLE

When we first began hearing the latest rumblings involving the Malibu Stage Company a few weeks ago, we wondered whether the newspaper should get drawn into yet another round of what could become “she said, he said” accusations and recriminations, most of which don’t meet our criteria for news, let alone submit to the basic journalistic tenets of substantiation.
Then the first letter to the editor arrived last weekend, and it was clear that an editorial decision had to be made. Do we enable anew what happened last time the MSC board imploded? At that time, the clash deteriorated into alternate epistles of charges and countercharges that a number of readers bluntly informed us was more than they wanted to know about the group’s interpersonal dynamics.
One has to ask whether these public altercations have stunted Malibu Stage Company’s potential? The recurring soap opera format of the internal machinations of MSC may befit the artistic temperament of some of the participants, but critics say that it may have prevented the kind of planning, preparation and community insight that could have kept theater seats packed with enthusiastic local residents for performance after performance.
Certainly, there have been excellent MSC productions that deserve the critical acclaim they received. Too many Malibuites, however, appeared uninterested—whether because of subject matter, seasonal scheduling, or other causes—in offerings that might have been better suited to an environment with a larger population base and the ability to draw on a more diverse audience.
One local actor friend put it this way; “There was often much better drama at the Malibu Stage board meetings than at its performances.” He wasn’t denigrating the productions, in which he, and others who quietly express similar views, participated, but to reflect a concern that MSC’s “Sturm und Drang” may have kept the effort from accomplishing even more than it did.
Malibu is a magic place and part of that magic is the many people who have the ability to bring together extraordinary talents to perform on stage, work backstage and provide all of the other skills required to bring a first-rate production to fruition. Some of these people made Malibu Stage’s highlights possible. But how many more of them would have stepped forward, if the counter-productive internal battling was not so rife?
There is potential for a professional theater company and an amateur repertory group to both thrive in Malibu. Having taken part in each in a past life, I look back fondly on the joys and the differences between the two forms of creative expression. But I have to ask whether trying to mix them is a classic case of oil and water. When one adds their respective attorneys to the cauldron, what results has an alchemy all its own.