England sends its Þrst playwright to 'set up an experiment'

By Lisa Crumrine Klionsky

In late January, the student actors appearing in In Extremis read through the Þnal scene of the new play for the Þrst time. British playwright Howard Brenton had just put the Þnishing touches on the play he began four weeks before.

Seated informally in the Arena Theatre adjacent to the Main Theatre stage, the students read the play aloud under UC Davis dramatic arts faculty member Sarah Pia Anderson's direction, with Brenton reading the stage directions.

The playwright answered the actors' and director's questions about certain lines. One sentence, noted Anderson, doesn't "sit well in America." The students and Brenton discussed the line, arriving at a solution.

This learning process, almost a dissection of the play, line by line, is what enticed Brenton to come to the campus this winter to participate in the Granada Artists-in-Residence program. The program, Brenton says, is something "like a laboratory" with a very high standard. His play is a teaching tool.

Brenton is the Þrst playwright to be part of the British collaboration. He arrived in early January and immediately sat down and wrote the play, which opens today in the Main Theatre and runs through March 16.

It has been, to say the least, a unique experience for this playwright.

"You usually don't have a company of actors in your living room each evening," while the play is being written, Brenton says. Typically, a playwright may wait up to a year to see a new work performed, he says.

Being on campus as part of the Granada program means a chance for him to speed up that process, Brenton says. And it's a chance to work in an experimental way.

Granada residency program

Since the early 1980s, the dramatic art department has been bringing British theater professionals to the UC Davis campus. The Granada name stems from the early days of the program when the head of Granada Television Ltd. helped establish the link to UC Davis. For 15 years, British actors, producers and directors from television, theater and cinema have been selected by their British theater peers and by UC Davis faculty members to teach and direct for a quarter at UC Davis.

During the 1996-97 academic year, three Granada artists will be here: Brenton, William Gaskill and Richard Cottrell. Anderson was a Granada visiting artist several times before taking a permanent faculty position in the dramatic art and dance department.

The play Brenton has written is set in 12th-century France. It depicts a world full of hope for new learning and new ways of living. It tells about the famous and tragic love affair between Abelard and Heloise and their development as religious leaders. Woven into the plot is the lifelong vendetta of Bernard of Clairveaux, who sought to destroy all that they represented.

Brenton, 54, writes for stage, television and Þlm in Britain. During an interview in his campus ofÞce, he says he thought of writing a play about Abelard and Heloise while watching a television program about the two historic Þgures.

Idea has been cooking

"I said to another actor, why not a play about this? I did some thinking about it, and it's been cooking in my mind for some time.

"It's a love story, with Abelard and Heloise locked in a battle of ideas. Then there are the Bernard of Clairveaux Þgure and the themes of religious liberalism and conventionalism," Brenton says. "Abelard's work is now beginning to be looked at again. Their ideas are very modern; they're like us, but stuck in the 12th century. It's really like being ahead of their time."

Brenton says he is enjoying being on campus, though he describes the Þrst part as "two weeks of darkness," referring to the jet lag and the initially overwhelming sense of foreignness he and his wife, Jane, experienced upon Þrst arriving in California. Faucets, coffee lids, bank-teller machines and supermarkets were among the everyday parts of life that confounded the couple.

"The choice you have in your supermarkets is stupefying, particularly when you have jet lag," Brenton says.

He explains that in some ways, being in the United States seems more foreign than being in a country where a different language is spoken.

"Although you can speak the language, there's all these things you can't do. America is much more foreign."

But after two weeks, he and his wife quickly became comfortable. "Now, we are completely in the swim of things. We walk around with our personalized coffee mugs and our sunglasses!"

Good relations with students

Working with American students has been gratifying, Brenton says.

"The students are unlike British students. The students here are very enthusiastic. They work very hard, the 'let's try' attitude is strong and the energy level
is high."

Brenton says he will take away "a lot of cultural stuff, particularly from the playwriting class." He is teaching the class while on campus.

Students who've worked with Brenton give him high marks.

"Howard (makes playwriting) seem easy," says Christopher Peak, a dramatic arts graduate student. "He's a hell of a writer. It's inspiring to watch him work. I couldn't believe that in such a short amount of time he could have turned out something so inspirational and so intriguing."

A different perspective

Peak praises the Granada program.

"Anytime you have the opportunity to work with someone from a different perspective, it opens your mind to another way of thinking. And the Granada program is from the culture that birthed Shakespeare and Shaw. The history is all there."

Jessica King, a senior dramatic art student who plays Heloise, worked with Anderson when she was a visiting artist.

"The Granada artists bring a completely different thought process in how they approach the play. The program allows students to take on something you wouldn't otherwise. The Granada artists have a repertoire that is more diverse. They bring things we've never heard of before.

"In the Granada program, you're working with people you've read about in an anthology or seen pictures of their work in school. The Granadas I've worked with have been open and not intimidating," she says. "To me, it's a great opportunity."