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Paul Birchall’s Got it Covered:
Ed Asner, The Broad Stage and Clifton’s Cafeteria
By Paul Birchall
Calling Mr. Grant:
Mary Tyler Moore and Ed Asner, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Over the weekend, we learned that Ed Asner, the grand old star of the Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant shows, has been elected to the SAG-AFTRA National Board once again. We say “once again” because he’s been there before – serving as an active and popular President of SAG during his two terms, from 1981 to 1985. Stage Raw welcomes the news of Asner’s election. He has a strong reputation for progressive and union values.
We also love Asner for an ancillary reason: He’s Pro99. He made that abundantly clear during the recent AEA election, when he was quoted (at the height of the Pro99 election campaign), “I hate to go against the laws of unionism, but actors need the 99-seat rule. Since time immemorial, actors have been known to work for free, and will continue to do so. It is not a governable art.”
Why this is important to us who follow the L.A. scene is that, although SAG-AFTRA has no jurisdiction over anything AEA actors do, there has been talk and rumors that at some point AEA may call (or has already called upon) SAG-AFTRA to support them in enforcing their vendetta against 99-seat theater producers using union actors. It’s bad enough that AEA has the power to enforce their decree against their own actors, but if AEA uses pressure to get SAG-AFTRA to forbid actors in their union from performing or sanctions them for performing in small theaters, the resulting calamity would be absurd.
Of course, there is no guarantee that Asner’s presence on the board can prevent SAG-AFTRA from adopting such a policy – he’s just one elected voice among many. But it at least suggests that it will not be a steamroll either: There will be a debate, consideration, and righteous anger. At least, that is if I remember my Mr. Grant correctly.
Broad Sword
Wiley Hausem
Last week, the LA Times reported that the Broad Theater has selected a new artistic and executive director to oversee its season starting in October. Well, huzzah for the beautiful, marble-festooned facility on 11th and Santa Monica Blvd! The new exec’s name is Wiley Hausem, and he reportedly comes from a similar position he held at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall. The shift in leadership, according to the article, is being hailed (at least by board chairman Richard Kendall), as a change that will “expand our offerings in dance and theater.”
The goals of advancing art are commendable – though, in truth, the article suggests that Hausem’s scheduling at his other venues was quite similar to what usually plays at the Broad. This, of course, is due to the caviar chitlin circuit that many of the high culture productions travel in from city to city, which is reminiscent of the old Schubert-style vaudeville touring system that sent the same acts touring the country.
More intriguing is the Times piece’s exploration of the Broad’s finances, which more clearly relate to the leadership change. This is the first year that the Broad has been in the red, apparently – a worrisome economic reality that the wigs-in-power attribute to an increase in performance dates and a commensurate drop in attendance.
Even more attention-piquing to the venomous reader is the how the L.A. Times couches the new hire in the context of providing additional fundraising opportunities, and also as an attempt to “compete” with other civic performance spaces around Los Angeles, most particularly the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, and REDCAT downtown, all of which engage in booking bus-and-truck tours of high art travelling on the circuit.
We rather hope that the new hire will actually try to create a personal “stamp” for the Broad, rather than just showcase the same travelling troupes of Zambian drum players or Irish folk dancers who appear at similar performance spaces around the country. No slight intended to Zambian drummers or Irish folk dancers, but these attractions appeal to a decidedly select crowd of checkbook holders, and the motive for booking them is a bit too obvious.
Wouldn’t it be something if the Broad actually started starring local artisans, as REDCAT does downtown, on their mainstage? Let’s hope that Mr. Hausem takes advantage of the resources of the community his theater is placed in, and by that we don’t mean just the caviar swilling charity doyennes.
Born Again Clifton’s
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But of course, the biggest news of the week is the announcement that Clifton’s Cafeteria, that whimsical mainstay of Downtown L.A., is reopening on September 6th. After operating since the 1970s, Clifton’s first closed about four years ago — to much despair of those a certain generation, as well as those with an appetite for the glories of retro chic. The cafeteria’s reboot is indeed cause for celebration. There should be no visit to the Los Angeles Theatre Center, on 5th and Spring without stopping over at the insanely furnished old-style cafeteria, whose first floor contains papier-mâché trees and bushes so as to mimic the lush
atmosphere of a rain forest — and whose upper floors contained gigantic trees and waterfalls.
I can recall many times heading to Clifton’s before an assignment at LATC. You’d go right into the cafeteria, grab your tray, slide it right past the goblets of pudding and jello, and, if you were smart, go right to the turkey carvery. There, an enormously fat, apple cheeked chef would slice generous portions of a Thanksgiving brown-skinned turkey, ladle on the fluffy mashed potatoes, cover both with that kind of glow-in-the-dark gravy that always tastes like Americana perfection, and top it with ruby red cranberry sauce, so fresh out of the can the impressions of the tin were visible on the side of the sauce.
“Oh, you havin’ the Sunday dinner on Tuesday!” the chef might say. And, indeed, that is how life should be.
