Theater Review - Vinnie, Vidi, Vici

By example, Theater Emory’s Vincent Murphy emerges as an important leader in Atlanta’s theater community

Many vital talents lose their way in the groves of academe, becoming unable to see the forest for the ivy. As producing artistic director of Theater Emory, Vincent Murphy hates the idea of being cloistered in the Ivory Tower. “I think of myself as an artist who happens to be in an academic institution,” he says. “Unless you have an active relationship to the professional world, you either get too cynical or too idealistic. Tenure scared me — I’ve seen a lot of the living dead in universities.”

Fortunately, the tenured professor believes Theater Emory remains plugged into the real world. “As a research university, Emory wants you out there, where stuff is going on.” Rather than simply seek shelter on campus, Theater Emory plays a vital role on the Atlanta theater scene, providing a source for theatrical ideas and a resource for bringing them to fruition.

A native Bostonian, Murphy founded the acclaimed Theater Works playhouse in his home town in 1980, and for years traveled the country as a freelance director. In fall 1989, he joined Theater Emory, a professional producing company that employs Equity actors. Many of the past decade’s major events in Atlanta theater originated with Theater Emory, from festivals celebrating playwrights such as South Africa’s Athol Fugard to the construction of the Black Rose Elizabethan playhouse, which proved so popular that it stayed up for nearly four years, having been intended for one semester.

“I think we put ideas in the air,” says Murphy. “As these things are in the queue, I’ll send notes to the other theaters in town saying, ‘Hey, take from this. It’s here, come borrow, steal, be inspired by the information.’” And Atlanta’s playhouses frequently follow suit: Simultaneous with Theater Emory’s Ibsen Project, Actor’s Express staged A Doll’s House and Theatre in the Square did Hedda Gabler. You might consider it the “If you build it, they will come” approach to cultural leadership.

October sees a play festival initiated by Murphy that’s huge not just by local standards, but by any city anywhere, when 12 Atlanta theaters participate in the readings and productions of Naomi Wallace, a playwright lauded in England but little-known in the United States. “I thought if I just got two companies to participate, that would be great. I’m still astounded that there are 12,” Murphy says. “This is really unprecedented, and it’s a shocker, because it’s a high-wire move. I have no idea if she’s going to be the next Arthur Miller or Wendy Wasserstein, or anything like that. She’s in many ways unknown, untested and at the cutting edge.”

The festival sprung from Wallace’s contribution of her play Fugitive Cant to last spring’s Brave New Works series, a biennial program at Theater Emory’s Playwrighting Center, which are both Murphy inventions. Brave New Works has developed more than 80 new plays by local, national and international writers — more than a dozen of which have gone on to be produced at Atlanta playhouses. “Alumni” of Brave New Works include Frank Manley’s The Trap at the Alliance, Tom Key’s Lost in the Cosmos at Theatrical Outfit, The Gospel of John at Theater in the Square and Steve Murray scripts at theaters apparently all over town.

“When we do Brave New Works, I send a letter to companies saying, ‘If you have something you’re eager to develop and need help, we can help,’” Murphy says. “Or if I see a script that seems to fit another theater’s sensibility, I’ll let them know about it. I invited Chris Coleman to see Robert Schenkkan’s Handler at the festival, and because of that, Actor’s Express eventually staged Handler.”

A persistent advocate for the development of new plays, Murphy is pleased that other Atlanta theaters recently have beefed up their “research and development departments.” “The past three to four years have seen significantly more attention to the development of new plays, with new programs at Horizon and Theater in the Square, but I think we grandfathered that for the past 12 years or so,” he says.

Steve Murray, one of Theater Emory’s playwrights-in-residence, attributes Murphy’s support to his becoming a more confident and serious playwright. “Vinnie takes gambles on artists and puts more faith in them than they have in themselves,” he says. “He is constantly looking, hearing, absorbing, giving back and giving opportunities to other artists.”

Murphy’s own “stage” isn’t limited to Emory, or even Atlanta. As a director, Murphy has participated in productions across the country and in Canada, Europe and South America, while working with such national play centers as the Sundance Playwrights Lab and New York’s New Dramatists. One such job was the Salt Lake City Olympic Play Commission Project, for which Murphy has helped develop two significant new scripts, Tony-winner Arthur Kopit’s The Discovery of America and Pulitzer-winner Robert Schenkkan’s The Marriage of Miss Hollywood and King Neptune.

After readings of the plays were held in Salt Lake City last March, both playwrights were eager to further refine their scripts with Murphy. Thus Schenkkan and Kopit will be in residence at Emory this week, rehearsing with such local pros as Tom Key, Chris Kayser, Carolyn Cook and Gary Yates, with staged readings of the plays offered for free this weekend. For the uninitiated, a thoroughly rehearsed, staged reading of a script by professional actors is not only a crucial part of a play’s development, but a dramatic experience frequently comparable to a fully realized production. The sets, costumes and blocking may not be present, but the conflicts, laughs and passions usually are.

Even in his beginnings as a theater artist, Murphy never let himself be limited to the plays available to him. His career began in 1970 with a theatrical version of William Blake’s poetry, and since then he’s adapted a diversity of work, from Frank Manley’s novel The Cockfighter to a John Barth story about Siamese twins. “Sometimes I can’t find a play that speaks to me, but in the enormous body of literature, embedded in them are plays that I would like to do,” he says. He’s currently working on a scholarly book based heavily on his experiences, called The Art of Literary Adaptation.

Locally, Murphy has directed plays at nearly every theater in town: One of the exceptions, the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, will have him direct Death of a Salesman in 2002. But Theater Emory gets involved with Atlanta theaters in ways beyond scripts and direction. “I think we’ve collaborated with every major company around town,” says Murphy, crediting such staffers as managing director Pat Miller. “We’ve given support in financial aid, rehearsal space or dramaturgical help to practically all of Atlanta’s companies. Theatrical Outfit saved about $55,000 because of all the work we donated in building sets for them. That’s what a university is meant to do — to be a resource for the community.”

Murphy believes that Theater Emory has fulfilled duties for years that may have rightly belonged to another Atlanta organization. “The important thing is that someone should make things happen. I think it should be the Alliance Theatre, because they’re the city’s flagship theater. In the past, we’ve taken on the function that the Alliance should have done, which is to be a community liaison kind of institution.”

Murphy acknowledges that a playhouse based in a university student center that uses undergraduates in its casts can face a prejudice from audiences. “The main downside for Theater Emory is the lack of recognition. Once you’re housed in a university, you’re perceived in a certain way: ‘Oh, they just work with students.’” He adds, “But it’s great to have bright, motivated undergrads with limited experience, because they’ll take chances that even MFA students won’t try.”

Atlanta’s theater professionals recognize Murphy’s contribution. “Theater Emory’s long commitment to working within the larger theatrical community is incredibly enriching for all of us,” says Tim Habeger, artistic director of PushPush Theater, where Murphy’s adaptation of The Cockfighter first appeared (a show that went on to Actors Theatre’s Humana Festival in Louisville, Ky.). “PushPush has developed much faster largely because of Theater Emory’s support and involvement.”

Murphy may mentor the local theater community in a figurative way, but at other times he does so quite literally. Attending the premiere of Les Parents Terribles, the inaugural production of Out of Hand Theater, Aug. 24, Murphy made a point of keeping a low profile. Most of the young company are recent Emory graduates, and he didn’t want to be perceived as looking over the shoulders of his former students — especially since the play’s director and the group’s managing director is Murphy’s own daughter, Ariel de Man.

Murphy and his wife, Rhonda, discreetly took a back row seat in the small Back Stage space at 7 Stages, but de Man found them before the play. “Did you see the dedication?” she asked, indicating the program for Les Parents Terribles. De Man quipped, “We thought about making it out ‘To my own terrible parent,’ but decided against it.”

The dedication reads: “Out of Hand Theater dedicates this production to Vinnie Murphy, teacher, father, inspirer, challenger and anonymous benefactor. Without his implicit support, we doubt we would have made it this far.” No doubt many other local theater artists would say the same for Theater Emory, which may be in an ivory tower, but has its doors wide open.

Readings for two plays in development for the Salt Lake City Olympic Play Commission Project will be held at Theater Emory this week. The Discovery of America is Sept. 8 at 5 p.m. and The Marriage of Miss Hollywood and King Neptune is Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. at the Mary Gray Munroe Theater, Dobbs University Center, 605 Asbury Circle, Emory. Free. 404-727-5050. www.emory.edu/THEATER/??