The set for Arts/Lanes’ production of Romeo and Juliet at the Halsted Theatre Centre has a lean and hungry look. This isn’t the sumptuous Renaissance of Franco Zeffirelli’s movie, or the sleek 20th-century vision of last season’s Goodman Theatre production. The only thing onstage for most of this version is a bare, slightly inclined wood platform, which serves as a street corner, a table, a bed, and finally a funeral bier.
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The theater-for-teenagers hook is hardly unique to Arts/Lanes, of course; but this company is special for several reasons. First of all, there’s its founder and artistic director, Dr. Ralph Lane. When the history of the growth of off-Loop theater is written, Lane’s name should loom large: as a teacher at Glenbrook North High School and later Illinois State University, he trained several waves of important talent. He has particularly close ties to Steppenwolf Theatre. Many members of the troupe, including John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Terry Kinney, Gary Cole, Jeff Perry, and Randall Arney, studied with Lane at ISU; Frank Galati, affiliated with Steppenwolf as well as with the Goodman Theatre and Northwestern University, was a student of Lane’s at Glenbrook North; and Lane himself has directed three Steppenwolf shows.
“I had a great time,” says the 62-year-old Lane of his years as a teacher. “Whether I was a wonderful teacher is not testable on the basis of the evidence we have. What we do have is a group of excellent people who loved working with me.”
“We make them come to us,” Lane says. “Our whole philosophy is that you don’t get people to go to the theater by bringing it to them. You need to get them to go to the theater. If you import a show for a school assembly or something like that, you may introduce them to dramatic literature. But you don’t introduce them to going to the theater.” Requiring teenage audiences to take the active step of attending a show, Lane feels, is a key part of breaking the passive attitudes developed by people who spend much of their leisure time watching television.
“I always tell my actors, ‘Use what you’ve got,’” he says. “It doesn’t have to be like life. It just has to be true to itself. If it is, it will be an effective work of art. One of my favorite sayings comes from Malcolm, Edward Albee’s dramatization of James Purdy’s story. It says, ‘Between simile and metaphor lies all the sadness in the world.’”
