Eminent director at UCLA set to show his "Big Love"

Theater professor Mel Shapiro believes that everyone in academia ought to practice what they preach. Luckily for him, he is currently able to put his money where his mouth is.

This month Shapiro, head of the MFA acting program, directs a new production of Charles Mee’s comedy “Big Love.” The play, based on Aeschylus’ “The Suppliant Woman,” has garnered high praise from reviewers for its unique take on the notion of arranged marriages.

Shapiro stumbled upon the play on the recommendation of a friend under whom Mee had studied. The play immediately intrigued Shapiro, not because he had a clear vision of how it should be performed, but because he wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it and was excited by the challenge.

“I was drawn to its originality, its off-the-wallness, its mixing of styles and genres,” Shapiro said. “(Mee) was taking a classical idea and putting it into very modern terms, but there is this remarkable humanity to it. It’s a very generous play in terms of exploring human ideas.”

As a director, Shapiro has always sought to tell stories that challenge the conventions of theater. He collaborated numerous times with avant-garde playwright John Guare, a partnership that led the duo to receive a Tony Award for their zany adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona” in 1971.

Other noteworthy plays that Shapiro helmed include the Broadway production of “The House of Blue Leaves,” winner of the New York Drama Critics Award for Best American Play, and Vaclav Havel’s “The Increased Difficulty of Concentration”, winner of an Obie for Best Foreign Play.

Despite Shapiro’s successes, he knows only too well the fickle nature of theater. Another Guare play he directed, “Bosoms and Neglect,” opened on Broadway in May of 1979 following a strong run in Chicago. After an unfavorable review in the New York Times, however, the production closed three days later.

The lessons of a long career often become lessons in Shapiro’s classroom.

“You’re always getting kicked in the ass in the theater,” Shapiro said. “I tell my students, there’s no such thing as success and no such thing as failure. You can’t start giving yourself little Tony Awards all the time, but you can’t start getting depressed every time things don’t work out. You have to have a balance.”

Directing never feels like a distraction from teaching for Shapiro. He says that most of his students appreciate having instructors who also work in their field. Students often attend rehearsals and performances of Shapiro’s plays.

“Any good theater school should try to replicate the reality of theater,” Shapiro said. “You can’t ever teach by the book. Teaching is a little bit like doing a Charles Mee play. Every class is an experiment.”

“Big Love” will have an extended run through Feb. 3 at the Pacific Resident Theater in Venice. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Call (310) 822-8392 for tickets.

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