Insurgo Theater Movement founder and artistic director John Beane is spearheading the Las Vegas premiere of absurdist classic The Water Hen. He’s also currently running on two hours’ sleep, and he apologizes in advance for any babbling that may occur.
Insurgo traces its roots back to 2001 in Orange County, California. What were the company’s initial goals?
It was a return to what I called an essential mode of theater. Theater is capable of a real transportive experience in real time right in front of you. There were a lot of the same kind of plays being done in that area, psychological realism, that kind of vibe over and over again. I wanted to get back to the fantastical or epic or dreamlike, something that has to do with potential and that kind of thing. “Insurgo” reminded me to keep pushing forward and never settle and keep trying to learn more and build new ideas. Then “Movement” was to remind me of the power of ensemble.
You’ve received honors for both acting and directing. What sort of outlet does acting provide for you that directing does not, and vice versa?
Acting is something that I’ve always done, and it’s something that I’m dedicated to always doing. It’s a part of me internally. The directing has more to do with creating the kinds of theater that I want to see. Directing is in some ways more personal, but I think I’m a little better at the acting right now. It’s a personal art, and it’s a personal discovery of getting to the core of this truth. The directing is personal vision, but it’s much more plugged into the world. It’s not in its own vacuum.
When and why did the company move to Vegas?
It had been five years we were in our own space. It was going well; we had really made some progress, and I took the company nonprofit. Going nonprofit took about a year, and we took that year off. I went and trained and worked with a great group from California State University Long Beach, checked out different techniques, read a lot of scripts and worked with different instructors. It allowed me to start to focus on what I was really hoping to accomplish with Insurgo.
I’m from here originally, and I started doing theater here when I was younger, and a part of me had always wanted to come back to Vegas. There’s an elemental quality to Vegas—there’s a degenerate quality to it also, which probably ties in with the elemental thing—but basically I felt the need to roll around in the dirt and just get dirty with it. Rip some shows out, really get down and deep in the guts internally with my art and try to get the kind of shows out and build something that I wanted to see. We were doing 14 main-stage shows a year at the other space, and I was probably directing four, five or six of them. It becomes a large-scale beast after a while, maintaining that kind of thing for a few years. I came here to build a more specific type of an ensemble.
What acting were you doing when you lived here before?
I started in junior high school. There’s a group that [Las Vegas Academy Theatre Department faculty member] John Morris used to run that was called New Vision Theater that did a kind of social-work theater. You’d go work in Boys and Girls Clubs, homeless shelters and rehabilitation places. You’re 14 years old and playing everything from a penis to a homeless guy to a crackhead to a rape victim. It was to educate and show alternatives and be sympathetic to those people.
John Morris is a fantastic guy. I ended up leaving home at, like, 15, 16, and he was very supportive. I did the theater thing through high school and went and competed at state competitions in college. There were a couple of shows here and there, but I didn’t get into alternative, independent theater at the time. I don’t even know if I would have recognized it if it was in front of me. But I left Vegas when I was 17. Once I graduated I got out. But I always knew that at some point I’d head back for a bit.
It seems some people still don’t recognize independent theater in this town. Why is it a particularly tough sell in Vegas?
The thing with theater is that it’s got the burden of selling its art. You’re selling your play, the performance, but you’ve also got the burden of selling the concept of theater. I think the main trouble companies at our level have is the origin of most is the Mickey Rooney, “C’mon everybody, let’s go in the barn and we’ll put on a show!” That’s how Insurgo started; we did Streetcar. That’s great, but it has to be treated as an entrepreneurial start-up that’s selling a dying product. It’s got to be treated as a business. There has to be at least as much enthusiasm and creativity and drive put into marketing and the administration of it. I had a theater company for three years in my 20s just before I started [Insurgo]. I’m very entrepreneurial. I kind of get horny on the marketing and the business side of it. I like the challenge of it.
But it all takes years and years. It’s a slow burn. It’s not an instant-success thing.
The Water Hen was originally supposed to debut at November’s Beckett Festival, but due to technical and scheduling issues, it’s now opening at the Onyx. How did you come to manage the Onyx Theatre?
When I came to Vegas last year I spent the first three months going to fundraisers all over town, checking out theater productions. I acted in a local Las Vegas Little Theatre show at the Black Box, trying to get the feel for the lay of the land, and I came across the Onyx. It’s a beautiful little box of wonders that’s tucked away in the Sixth Circle of Sin. The show I came out with was a totally revamped version of Lysistrata, and it was a good fit. It captured a little bit of attention, and Michael [Morse], the owner, he’d only had the place for about a year, and he saw what I’d done to get people in. He had Rocky Horror in there and had done two plays before, and a couple nights of Wayward Ways. He was going to turn it into one of those adult-booth rooms, but he asked me if I wanted to run it. I started working there officially in July and put up Hamlet.
We’ve been feeling things out over the last few months, and now we’ve got a 2008 season put together with a lot of different companies and a lot of different flavors. It’s the first step toward the kinds of thing that the Onyx should be doing.
Any particular shows you’re looking forward to?
I’m very excited about Doric Wilson’s Street Theater, about the Stonewall riots. It’s a bold and socially relevant work. I’m also very excited about Faust Is Dead, a play by Mark Ravenhill that’s going to be later in the year. It requires three amazingly brave actors. It’s incredibly personal, beautiful and sexy. It’s the kind of thing the Onyx could do very well. We’ve also got Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical coming up. I’m also a huge fan of our special engagements, the Cirque and variety groups. We’ve actually got a waiting list into 2009 that we can’t even deal with yet.
How succinctly can you describe The Water Hen’s plot?
“While the world is blowing up, father organizes a card game” is succinct. It’s a spherical tragedy that deals with expectations, art, beauty, potential and love. It’s also a satire, among other theatrical forms.
Some of Stanislaus Witkiewicz’s dominant themes include war and social revolution. Is the timing of putting this particular play on as elections loom accidental, or is a statement being made?
There’s not a connection there on my end. What the audience takes from it is entirely open. It’s a slightly more personal idea in that, apart from existentialism being a depressing philosophy, it’s also an empowering one. If existence precedes essence—if we are what we do—then anything’s possible. It leaves the universe open. That’s kind of where this play is going for me. It’s also got some real comic stuff to it, and some comments on the theatrical form, some farcical moments, but ultimately it’s getting at this idea that you either carve out your existence from reality or reality will have its way with you.
The Water Hen. January 18-February 9, Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m., $10-$15. The Onyx Theatre, 732-7225.