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Show Director believes a -performer is a servant jL I i By AFTON S. LEFEVRE John Reich, an internationally in-ternationally respected director and a leader in American regional theater, believes a performer is a servant of the people, not a . star who measures his success in money or fame. Reich, who will direct "As You Like It" for the Utah Shakespearean Festival this I summer, was born and bred . in Austria, where he was taught that an artist serves the people of his country by providing them with spiritual and emotional satsisfaction and humor. As a poignant example of how intensely the philosophy was taught to him, the director relates the story of country. Permission denied.' "It made my very unhappy at the time, but now I understand what he was doing. It may sound cruel, but a performer is not serving himself or his family, but he is serving the spiritual and emotional illumination of the people." Reich was successful as a director in Austria and he was also translating many successful Broadway plays into the German language lor all-star productions in Germany. But when Hitler came to power, Reich decided to leave his homeland. "Those from New York, coming out here, will discover that not everything is clean, and those going to New York will discover that the metropolis is a dangerous jungle full of snakes and beast of prey," Reich said. Reich said the contrasts in the play would be emphasized, em-phasized, such as between the city and the country. In Shakespeare's terms, the contrast is between the court and the forest of Arden. The audience must understand that the scene actually shifts from the city to the forest, so there will be a little more of a change than the audience has seen on the traditional Shakespearean stage; for instance, trees will come down, but the trees will not all be green. The trees represent not just a forest, but a dream the golden age of people's dreams. Perhaps the trees will appear like green to some and like gold to others, he explained. In his director's notes for the play, Reich says "As You Like It" is a comedy with occasional laughter, but with many wise similes. It was not given to use merely lor amusement, he emphasized. The contrasts and ironies of the play have their equivalent in our lives today, he pointed out. Director John Reich the time when he was a very young man and serving as a director in the National Theatre in Austria. "I was in rehearsal, and my lather died suddenly. His funeral was to take place within two days. I went to the director general of the National Theatre, who was a very big personality, of course, in that organization, and I approached him trembling and said, 'Could I have the afternoon off from rehearsals to attend my father's funeral?' I had an assistant who could take care of it for a couple of hours, I told him. The director general did not even look from his writing. He said, 'Young man, you have to decide right now whom you are serving your family or the people of this I m not Jewish, so I was not in danger physical danger; but I considered it a spiritual danger. The way I was brought up did not work with the Nazi ideas," he said. "I was already translating O'Neil, and I always wanted to live and work here. I was brought over by Ithaca College , which is now CornelH University, to professionalize their theater." The play will remind one, he said, that the people who live in New York's slums , have a tremendous longing to work in the mountains of Utah, and some people who grow up in remote mountain areas in Colorado have a dream of diving into the skyscraper valleys of New York. |