Its publication long delayed, Free for All, the oral history of Joe Papp and the rise of the Public Theater in New York, comes across almost as much as a curio, an historical artifact, as the inspirational tale it tells of a scrappy New York kid who loved Shakespeare and almost singlehandedly created one of this nation’s most influential and enduring cultural institutions.
Told by over a hundred voices, including actors, directors, theatre administrators, critics, writers, New York politicians, and Papp himself, the book presents an often vibrant, sometimes cacophonous mosaic of New York theater history from the 1950s through the 70s, as Papp grew up and molded the New York Shakespeare Festival into an irresistible cultural force, and his own legend into something more elusive.
It makes sense that a book composed of many voices would offer many stories. There’s the biography of Papp himself, born poor in New York and almost heroically possessed of self-confidence, drive, and a genius to organize. There are fascinating glimpses of New York’s cultural history during the second half of the 20th century, as Papp crosses paths with many of the city’s most powerful citizens, including a fascinating standoff with the almost royally powerful Robert Moses. And there’s the history of American theater, as Papp bends the path of theater towards himself and his stages, first through free Shakespeare in Central Park and then by the significant plays her premiered and playwrights he championed at the Public Theater. You cannot write the history of American theater without devoting a major portion of the story to Joseph Papp. This book provides wonderful source material, but does not tell the full or completely satisfying story itself.
Part of the problem lies with its form. Without commentary, it can be hard to decipher a central narrative from the hundreds of speakers and thousands of conversations which make up this exhaustive oral history. The book works best when Papp speaks and tells his own story. He’s a carnival huckster, a brash kid who made it big in the big city, and he never lost his street-kid persona. Papp is egotistical, funny, passionate, intellectual, and sometimes mean. When many players comment on a single event, we get overlapping and contradictory impressions, such as when CBS cancelled its contract to air the Public Theater’s uncomfortable dramas, or when Papp hustled to raise funds to build the Delacorte or refurbish the Public. He’s self-mythologizing man, and almost had to be to accomplish what he did, but that does not lend itself to a comprehensive history, even when balanced out by other voices’ more objective assessments.
Turan segments Papp’s story into three acts. Act One covers the formative years, as Papp escapes an impoverished boyhood, discovers his love of theater and Shakespeare, develops his mastery of producing, and fulfills the dream to bring Shakespeare to the masses. We hear about the boy who earns pennies plucking chickens, the chief petty officer in the Navy who puts on shows, the actor in Los Angeles who sweeps up the theatre, and the brash impresario in New York who hustles venues, actors, directors, and politicians to successfully mount Shakespeare’s plays first in a frigid theater in the East Village and then later in the East River Park Amphitheatre. This part of the story ends with Papp building the Delacorte and successfully battling Robert Moses to keep the productions free.
Act Two details the productions of seminal plays and includes fascinating backstage stories about the creation of the Pulitzer-prize winners No Place to Be Somebody, That Championship Season, and Short Eyes. There are amazing vignettes with George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst, Jerry Stiller and Roscoe Lee Browne. We see Papp’s complex relationship with David Rabe, who seems to be to the Public what Clifford Odets was to The Group Theater. As Papp says, “Once I got into one of David’s works, it stuck to me like the most important thing in my life. I because so connected with his plays that I felt that I would protect them from anything. I’d say my connection with David was the strongest connection I’ve had with a writer in the theater’s history. And I think he’s the greatest writer we’ve produced. His talent is yet to be recognized.” Mike Nichols, who directed Rabe’s Streamers, adds, “He is a passionate, engaged man, and he and Joe have something similar that’s very rare in the theater, a powerful moral sense.” This part of the story ends when Papp and the Public conquer Broadway, first with the production of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and then with A Chorus Line. Bernard Gersten, Papp’s loyal colleague, says, of Verona, “It signaled a change in the theater: suddenly the not-for-profit theaters that were growing in sophistication and capability began to feed Broadway.”
The third act seems to follow Papp’s fall, or at least his semi-uncomfortable stasis at the top of the New York, and the U.S., theater world. Several fascinating relationships are only partly explored, such as Papp’s connection with Michael Bennett, the director and choreographer of A Chorus Line. And there’s the sad story of Papp’s sacking of Gersten, which could have benefited from more exploration. Perhaps the downside of Papp’s own involvement in the book is that we never see Papp as a fully-rounded individual. We learn almost nothing of his personal life. This produces some surprising moments, such as when his first wife is covered by an aside. If we don’t completely know the man, we cannot completely understand the personal reasons that may have influenced his producing decisions. Tell us more about his relationship with Rabe, and Bennett and Miguel Pinero who wrote Short Eyes. Why did he fire Gerstein after decades on the job? What really drove him to climb to the top of the social spectrum of moneyed New York? The book cannot tell us, because it lacks authorial insights into the man and doesn’t have the means, as an oral history, to editorialize.
What it can tell us, and tells us most successfully, are stories of Shakespeare in America, and the American theater, during this particularly dynamic period. Papp’s productions did not revolutionize acting Shakespeare, but they did create an environment that seemed to capture a certain rawness and explosiveness which had been missing from productions in the recent past. Papp’s genius was to stage the plays out doors and to keep them free. As a result, they seemed to connect directly to a popular aesthetic. Papp returned Shakespeare to the realm of mass entertainment. This was true from the first production of Julius Caesar at the East River Park Amphitheater in the early 60s. Says Papp, “A lot of elderly Jewish people came from those [low-cost housing developments], and during the course of the play you’d hear all these comments similar to what used to go on in the Yiddish theater. They’d yell to Caesar, “Watch out, he’s killing you!’ and ‘Oh, it’s a shame!’ They would comment on it because they felt this was actually happening.” Adds Colleen Dewhurst, “No critic told them it was good or bad, they were just reacting on a summer night to what was happening. I realized that theater is not an elitist art. Theater is for the people. I could have gone through a whole career not having had that kind of experience. I thought, finally, ‘This must be the way Shakespeare really was.’”
James Earl Jones, who was in Gladys Vaughan’s production of Othello in 1964, spoke about Vaughan’s direction and the direction American Shakespearean acting was to take. “She had a great sense of what passion was about. She never settled for emotion, she said, ‘Let’s elevate it to passion.’ Especially out of doors, emotion can often be indulgent on the stage and never reach the audience. It you’re crying, no one can see that past a few feet. She wanted that emotion elevated so that it would affect your voice and your body, so that it would project as also be of a size fitting to Shakespeare.”
It’s this largeness, plus the egalitarian nature of the enterprise, which seems to define Shakespeare productions under Papp. Gerald Freedman, a director, sums it up. “Over the next several years, the style of Shakespeare that we did in the park really changed the way Shakespeare is perceived and performed in this country. We combined the Method and the word. We used thee personality of the actor, the inner life of the actor, to invigorate the language. When there was a compromise to be made between an actor who had some balls and an actor who had technique, we’d go for the actor who had balls. I didn’t think we did it because it suited the park, but it did suit the park because playing outdoors to an audience that represented all areas of the city demanded energy and invigoration.”
The book captures the energy of this new artistic enterprise. It follows the flowering of an age of free Shakespeare in Central Park, the birth of a new generation of actors including George C. Scott, Dewhurst, Charles Durning, and many, many others, and the growth of new American plays that challenged convention and shook up Broadway. If it lacks momentum, and seems to drag on as it recounts one production after another, it gains energy from the audiences who crowded the park, and the voice of the man behind it all, driven, intimate, insistent, and outrageous, a showman for Shakespeare and himself.
Tags: Joseph Papp, Public Theater, Shakespeare
