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Ethos Theatre Company’s unorthodox classicist
“Chris runs the theater space and pays rent. I help, but he runs it. The space and the rent check come from him. [Ethos has] a set amount that I have to pay to him, so it’s like a sublease.”
This arrangement isn’t something many other new companies can duplicate, but Amanda Berube’s headaches are familiar to nearly everyone in the business, especially what might be a reluctance to delegate duties and only a casual interest in press notices — notices her actors seem eager for.
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“It’s not that I’m against being reviewed,” she says, “it just hasn’t been a priority.”
Berube admits to moments of fatigue but says she never burns out. And, although she is usually at her theater seven days a week, occasionally she gets out to see what other companies are doing and exudes an astonished admiration for Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, the quirky, sometimes Grand Guignol–ish storefront theater in North Hollywood.
Some of her workshops stress the Viewpoints acting technique, a relatively obscure program that, unlike the Method, discovers an actor’s relationship to the past and present, and to other characters, through physical movement and spatial proportions. Although she will modify the technique, which in part grew out of director Anne Bogart’s teachings, it hasn’t always gone down well with some company members. Recently, one quit in despair after Berube announced a one-night-only performance of Twelfth Night. What would give this production its edge was that none of the cast members knew who would be playing the story’s other roles and, even more ambitiously, there would be no rehearsals.
“It’s so cool,” she enthuses. “The performance is either going to be a complete train wreck or it’s going to be amazing!”
If anyone can bring Shakespeare to La Brea — and keep it there — it’s Amanda Berube. “Work hard. Play hard,” she posts on her MySpace page. “One day I’ll take a nap. I love my life. I love my work.” After all, she had always wanted her own Shakespeare company by the age of 25 — and got it at 23.
For more information, visit www.ethostheatrecompany.org.
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