HAMLET is Shakespeare’s most famous play, and also his most modern. The twisty plot, the undercover hero pretending to be mad, the explorations of duty and revenge, love and sex, friendship and betrayal, are the very fabric of our modern entertainment media. Indeed, we might recognize HAMLET as the prototype for every Crime Scene Investigation program, whether set in the Navy, New York, Miami, Las Vegas or (as in this case) Denmark. Where is the evidence that proves that a crime took place? What can we know? What can we not know? These are dramatic questions that Shakespeare asks of us.

But unlike our familiar television programs (whose purpose, after all, is to sell toothpaste and bathroom tissue), HAMLET leads us deeper into human experience - Shakespeare, writing more than 400 years ago, had no forensic technicians pouring over a victim’s remains with microscopes, cotton swabs and DNA sequencers for evidence of a murder. Shakespeare brings the victim back from the grave to finger his assailant. HAMLET is a ghost story, tacked on to a murder plot, with a chamber piece stuck right in the middle.

Ghosts are “trick-or-treat,” kids-in-costumes and Friday-night-at-the-movies for us, but for the citizens of Shakespeare’s day spirits were absolutely real. Some thought ghosts were the souls of the dead come back to earth as God’s punishment. Others believed that spirits came in two flavors: good or bad (nothing in between). Shakespeare uses everyone’s theory.

So how can we know the ghost’s true nature? That thing calling itself “dear old Dad” and ordering you to kill your uncle might not be what it claims to be - even though tender feelings for your dearly departed father invite you to think of it as “an honest ghost.”

Man’s knowledge is imperfect. Man, himself, is imperfect (a fact of which Hamlet is more than keenly aware). So how can we choose a right course of action? In an age when people were responsible for their own souls and justice was eternal, you did not want to make the wrong choice. It could have lasting consequences.

Shakespeare wrote for an audience who saw the Universe in terms of moral justice, not galaxies and quarks. If Claudius pushed Hamlet’s father off the Danish throne, God, inevitably, will push back - through Hamlet. As the Almighty’s appointed to rule on earth, a rightful king is rightfully concerned for the well being of his people. Claudius (though not a bad politician) is concerned for his own well being. He is the famous “something” that is rotten in Denmark.

A final note: Shakespeare set his play in a remote past - a time when the English paid tribute to Denmark (in money, not warm feelings) to keep the Viking raiders off England’s northern coasts. Our production moves the period to the early 19th century, the Napoleonic era, when national borders and centuries of European tradition were swept aside by war. We draw on the instability of this world. We use its Romantic energies to put the play in fresh context, and to compliment the flow of the action.

-- William Keeler, Dramaturge

Playing April 26 - May 20, 2007
Call (805) 667-2900 NOW for tickets!
Or click here to reserve online

[back to top]

April 26 - May 20, 2007
Call (805) 667-2900 NOW for tickets!
Or click here to reserve online

In Rubicon Theatre's upcoming production of HAMLET we hear Joseph Fuqua, James O'Neil, Stephanie Zimbalist, her father Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and a company of powerful Shakespearean actors utter phrases that sound familiar. Everyone knows, "To be or not to be...." Yet that is just the beginning.

HAMLET is the source for "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," "To thine own self be true," "O, woe is me," "What a piece of work is a man!" and that infamous line "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Therapists often quote "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so," and numerous actors cite the great playwright in support of their craft: "The play's the thing!" If someone denies recognizing any of these, one could say "The lady doth protest too much."

HAMLET was first performed around 1600. Since then, it has proven to be one of the English language's most enduring stories. Rubicon's production is a thrilling roller-coaster ride -- filled with murder, madness and mayhem. Call now for tickets!

[back to top]

The plot and characters in HAMLET have been the inspiration for many other modern stories. Disney's The Lion King includes themes adapted from HAMLET. The 1970s musical Hair has a subplot featuring a hippy Hamlet, and delivers direct references and quotations from Shakespeare's version.

Additionally, television programs such as "South Park," "Gilligan's Island," "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "Frasier" and "The Simpsons" have featured plots that revolved around HAMLET. And the Klingon Hamlet (full title: The Tragedy of Khamlet, Son of the Emperor of Qo'nos) was a project to translate HAMLET into Klingon for the television series "Star Trek."

References to the play in contemporary media are far too lengthy to list as the play has literally infused itself into our cultural lexicon. On Rubicon Theatre's stage, HAMLET continues to speak the language of yesterday and today.

HAMLET plays April 26th - May 20th
Three of our last four shows have been sell-outs. Don't risk missing your chance to discover why HAMLET is oft referred to as "the greatest play ever written."

Call (805) 667-2900 NOW for tickets!
Or click here to Reserve Online

Hamlet at the Rubicon Theatre.

The Enigma of Hamlet Lives On

Thursday, May 3, 2007

By Bojana Hill

Hamlet has been performed many times since Shakespeare wrote his famous tragedy in 1600. Now the Rubicon Theatre joins the ranks of companies that have produced the world’s most famous play with a stellar production directed by Jenny Sullivan, and with Joseph Fuqua as Hamlet.

Joseph Fuqua turns in a masterful performance  as Hamlet in the Rubicon Theatre’s current production of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. Hamlet is here shown with Ophelia, who is  played by Alison Brie.

Instead of the original medieval historical setting, this production unfolds in an early-19th-century setting. Exquisite period costumes reflect the grandeur of the Danish royal court in the era of the Napoleonic wars. At the center of the stage, tall panels adorned with chess figures accentuate the craftiness of Claudius and the play’s theme of moral corruption. The staging of the ghost of Hamlet’s father is handled practically, with a metallic voice suggesting something modern from outer space. During his appearance, thunderous sounds fill the intimate theatre space, leaving a feeling of awe in its wake that continues throughout the production. Joseph Fuqua is superb in the complex role of Hamlet. Initially stone-faced as a grief-stricken son, he pounces on Claudius and his mother with sarcastic puns that reveal his anger. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of being common, and he reviles his uncle Claudius, who has not only remarried his mother in haste, but has also usurped Hamlet’s right to the Danish crown. In Fuqua’s interpretation, Hamlet is a witty, absurd hero whose ability to see through false appearances and pretenses receives more emphasis than his melancholy indecision. This production’s finest scenes include Hamlet’s lucid mockeries of the sycophants Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the quick repartee he makes with a bewildered Polonius (Rudolph Willrich). In the nunnery scene, Hamlet rages at Ophelia (Alison Brie), who is equally lost in a vortex of lies and treachery. Brie delivers a deeply moving performance as Ophelia, an innocent girl “divided against self and her own judgment.” The second act is a tour de force. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. plays the dignified Player King with great pathos, and Remi Sandri expresses Laertes’ hot tempered, vengeful spirit precisely.

James O’Neill’s nuanced portrayal of Claudius presents a villain with a remorseful, penitent side. Leonard Kelly Young (also the Ghost) evidently cherishes the role of the gravedigger in a lighter, comedic scene. The quick pace observed in the soliloquies and dialogues ensures the audience’s complete absorption in this three-hour modern performance of a drama that continues to stir our minds and hearts now, some 400 years after its composition.

Play put Rubicon in a difficult legal situation

By Colleen Cason, ccason@VenturaCountyStar.com
July 21, 2005

The Rubicon Theatre Company had cast the actors for its production of "Tuesdays with Morrie."

The troupe named a director, created a set and alerted the media.

Indeed, in the weeks before the play's scheduled June 16 opening curtain, the Ventura company had everything in place.

Everything, that is, but the legal right to stage the Jeffrey Hatcher-Mitch Albom play, according to representatives of playwright Albom and the William Morris Agency.

Only through an unusual, last-minute agreement between the 207-seat Rubicon and New York-based entertainment powerhouse William Morris did the play run legally through its final curtain Sunday.

But that pact -- powered together two days before the premiere -- contained a rare provision: The Rubicon was forbidden from publicizing the production.

In trying to control media coverage and still fill the seats in the East Main Street venue, varying stories emerged from the troupe about how the respected, seven-year-old regional theater found itself in this precarious position.

Staging a production without the rights would make the company subject to civil litigation, according to Donald Farber, a New York attorney specializing in theatrical law.

Karyl Lynn Burns, the Rubicon's co-founder, said she thought permission had been secured three months before the opening of the autobiographical play about Detroit columnist Albom's weekly visits with his dying mentor. She learned the troupe did not have the rights during a telephone conversation with a William Morris agent a few days before the show was to open, Burns said.

"We absolutely believed we had the rights," she said.

When asked by The Star to show "Morrie" production-related contracts, Burns declined.

Burns explained in a conversation with The Star's editor, Joe Howry, in June that William Morris had pulled the rights at the eleventh hour because a national touring company was in negotiations to stage the play in Los Angeles with "Barney Miller" star Hal Linden in the lead role.

Jack Tantleff, who handled the matter for the William Morris Agency, would not comment on the record about its dealings with the Rubicon on this production.

Burns, a veteran of local repertory, said the process of obtaining the rights to "Morrie" was unlike that for other Rubicon productions.

"We thought it was a more casual agreement," she said.

Casual is not a word Paul Hough, director of production for the American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City, would use to describe the contract his troupe inked for its just-finished run of "Tuesdays with Morrie."

That contract, said Hough, gave Albom approval over the choice of actors and of certain crew members.

Albom did approve the casting and was in frequent contact with Hough, even returning phone calls during station breaks of Albom's radio show.

The Rubicon had no contact with Albom during casting or rehearsals, Burns said.

And that is telling, said Albom's literary agent, David Black. "Mitch didn't know anything about this (the Rubicon) production before it opened."

"His contracts always specify he has these kinds of approvals, and he always exercises them," Black said.

Theatrical contracts vary widely, according to attorney Farber, and they do often contain clauses forcing smaller theaters to yield their rights if a national company hits town.

The Indiana Repertory Theatre encountered just this situation with "Tuesdays with Morrie," according to Jane Robison, the company's executive director.

Robison received tentative approval to stage "Morrie" at the 600-seat Indianapolis theater. But when she sought a contract for the rights in April of this year, she was told her run -- scheduled to close at the end of December 2005 -- would compete with the Broadway Across America national tour coming into a larger Indianapolis venue on Jan. 17, 2006.

She was forced to substitute another play but had received several months notice.

In her 20 years in the theater business, Robison said, she had never heard of a company having its rights yanked within days of opening.

By all accounts, the no-publicity deal struck between William Morris and the Rubicon also is unusual.

To hold up her end of this bargain, Burns approached Star Editor Howry and asked him not to send a reviewer to the play. The Star reviews most Rubicon productions.

"Karyl Lynn told me the shutdown of this production could bankrupt the Rubicon," Howry said of a discussion held in his office the day before the play's June 18 premiere.

Because the theater is a Ventura County cultural resource, Howry agreed not to review the play.

Burns later declined to give the estimated monetary loss to the troupe had "Morrie" gone dark.

In addition, The Star is a sponsor of the Rubicon. The newspaper provides advertising space to the troupe in exchange for promotional tie-ins, according to Monica White, The Star's director of marketing.

Despite the no-publicity pledge, ads for the Rubicon's production of "Morrie" ran in the Star 19 times during the play's run, White said.

Burns, who is rehearsing her one-woman show "Shirley Valentine," scheduled to open Aug. 18, said she forgot to cancel the ads.

She did write a script for actor Harold Gould to deliver to audiences after several performances of "Morrie."

The character actor, who appeared in the film "Freaky Friday" and on the TV sitcom "Rhoda," encouraged theatergoers to spread the news about the production by word of mouth, according to patron Arlene Broslow.

As Broslow recalls Gould's words, he said the Rubicon had bought the rights and met all legal requirements, but a national touring company eyeing a Los Angeles run wanted this staging of "Morrie" shuttered days before its opening. He then explained the no-publicity pact.

"We in the audience were dumbfounded," Broslow said. "As good as this production was, the people who held the rights were going to shut it down before it even opened."

Despite the lack of reviews, the play drew larger audiences than projected, according to Burns.

Claire Bowman, chairwoman of the Rubicon's board of directors, is grateful to William Morris for allowing the production to be seen by county theatergoers.

"Because of incorrect assumptions on our part, a delicate situation arose," Bowman said in a written statement.

"The rights holders responded in the spirit of the play to allow us the opportunity to present what was a moving, beautiful and comforting experience for several thousand local audience members," she added.

Known for its hardball dealings on behalf its roster of A-list clients, William Morris is cast against type in this scenario -- actually showing its softer side.

"They were generous in finding a compromise," Burns said.

Her sentiments were echoed by Albom's agent, Black.

"What happened here is like the play 'Tuesdays with Morrie' itself. It's about people being decent to each other."

Touched by 'Tuesdays'

Actor resisted the dark topic at first but, when Rubicon Theatre part came to him, he answered call to 'Morrie'

By Karen Lindell klindell@VenturaCountyStar.com
June 16, 2005

"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

-- Morrie Schwartz

Joseph Fuqua received not one but two copies of Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie" from well-meaning sympathizers when his father died in 1999.

One look at the best-selling memoir's subtitle -- "an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson" -- and Fuqua wanted nothing to do with Morrie.

"I resisted. I didn't want to deal with that," said the actor of the book's title subject: a man dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Duty called, however, when Fuqua landed the role of Albom in the Rubicon Theatre Co.'s stage production of "Tuesdays with Morrie," which opens Saturday.

After an in-depth reading of the book to prepare for the play, Fuqua finally understood the same thing as millions of others who've been touched by "Tuesdays with Morrie" since its publication in 1997: that death isn't a dirty word to be buried or swept away, and matters of life and death aren't really so different.

Don't cue the funeral march

In 1995, Albom, a hotshot sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, was blissfully inundated with deadlines, interviews and frenzied days on the road when he saw his former sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, on "Nightline" with Ted Koppel.

Schwartz, who had been Albom's favorite teacher at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, was dying from ALS.

"Nightline" wanted to profile Schwartz because of his determination to go proudly -- but gently -- into the night.

To keep his condition from becoming something people whispered about with pity, or avoided discussing at all, Schwartz was determined to "walk that final bridge between life and death, and narrate the trip."

Albom was invited along for the journey.

He started visiting the ailing Schwartz regularly on Tuesdays. Their teacher-student relationship continued, but this time the subjects weren't so academic: death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society and forgiveness, to name a few.

"Dying is only one thing to be sad over," Schwartz tells Albom. "Living unhappily is something else."

"Are you at peace with yourself?" "Are you trying to be as human as can be?" Schwartz challenges Albom.

Like Fuqua, Harold Gould, who plays Schwartz in Rubicon's production, was reluctant to delve into the story of Morrie.

"I've been spoken to before about playing this role," Gould said during a joint interview with Fuqua for The Star, "but wasn't interested because I thought it was about death and physical deterioration."

After agreeing to play Schwartz in Rubicon's production (because director Jenny Sullivan and the Rubicon Theater Co. "are like family," Gould said), he's been surprised at how "undepressing" the story is.

"It's filled with the spice of life; it's not unremittingly funereal," Gould said.

Humanity, not sentimentality

Gould, while reading up on ALS, an incurable nerve disease that causes loss of muscle control, discovered "there are differences in patients who suffer from it" -- not in their symptoms, but in their response to the condition.

Some react with bitterness and rage. Famed science author Stephen Hawking has continued to connect with his mind.

But Schwartz, who died relatively shortly after his diagnosis, decided to "make connections with people, to teach the value of love, compassion, consideration and acceptance of where you are," Gould said.

Schwartz's sage advice -- of the "stop and smell the flowers," "carpe diem" and "give and you shall receive" variety -- isn't so different from what rabbis, preachers and philosophers have been saying for thousands of years.

But Schwartz is more persuasive than these wise men and women, Gould said, "because he's dying. It's so much more than Billy Graham. It comes out of his pores. You really accept his humanity."

Fuqua agreed, explaining that he finally "got" the book's message because "I really like Morrie. He's a real person."

Gould admitted that the story can at times be "lovey-dovey, easy, melting," but avoids sentimentality by reminding us that humanity isn't always pretty.

At the end of his life, Schwartz couldn't walk or eat normal food. He had difficulty breathing, coughed for long periods of time, and as he told Koppel during the "Nightline" interview, "Well, Ted, one day soon, someone's gonna have to wipe my ass."

(The book goes into more graphic detail than the play about the physical effects of ALS.)

Two men and a stage

The stage version of "Tuesdays with Morrie," co-written by Albom with Jeffrey Hatcher, debuted off-Broadway in 2002.

Unlike the book -- or the 1999 TV movie produced by Oprah Winfrey, which won four Emmy Awards -- the two-actor play focuses solely on Albom and Schwartz. We learn about other people mentioned in the book only through dialogue.

Fuqua and Gould's dialogue with each other is as endearing and respectful as the exchanges between Albom and Schwartz.

During the interview with The Star, for example, the actors engaged in thoughtful conversation, directing their answers, comments and banter toward each other rather than to a reporter.

It's tempting to compare Fuqua, 43, and Gould, 81, to their counterparts in "Tuesdays with Morrie" (in the book, Albom is 37 and Schwartz is 78).

The actors, both Rubicon veterans, starred together in Rubicon's "Old Wicked Songs," a drama about a young piano virtuoso (Fuqua) who is forced to take singing lessons from an emotionally fragile teacher (Gould).

They are reprising a similar "mentor-mentee" relationship onstage in "Tuesdays with Morrie."

But offstage, Gould and Schwartz heap plenty of praise on each other, which suggests that despite their age difference, as actors and friends they are more like peers than student and teacher.

Life 101 syllabus

Fuqua and Gould shared some of their favorite "Morrie principles" for living:

"This is a little greeting card-ish," Fuqua said, "but I like the idea that giving is living. When you give of yourself like Morrie did, then when you die you're not really gone."

Gould found comfort in Schwartz's advice to "forgive everybody, even if you're 100 percent right." Or in the case of Albom, even if he's not.

Fuqua and Gould admit that at first they were disappointed to hear about Albom's recent tangle with journalistic ethics at the Detroit Free Press.

The newspaper briefly suspended Albom while investigating a column in which he described two basketball players watching a game at their alma mater. Albom had written the column as an advance story, and the players didn't actually attend the game.

A subsequent review of his past columns also found that sometimes Albom (and other columnists at the paper) quoted material from other media without proper attribution.

Albom defended his approach to quoting other sources, and his column has been reinstated at the paper.

But Gould and Fuqua were willing to forgive.

"He got sucked into the pressure of his former existence," Gould said. "It's very tempting and understandable."

"Right away I thought, 'I wonder if Morrie is rolling over in his grave,' " Fuqua said. "I feel like Mitch Albom didn't get all the lessons.

"But that's humanity. It's not a perfect wash. You can always go back into darkness, and then see the light again."

"Tuesdays .with Morrie"

The play, based on Mitch Albom's book of the same name, opens at 7 p.m. Saturday, with previews today and Friday, at the Rubicon Theatre Co., starring Joseph Fuqua and Harold Gould, and directed by Jenny Sullivan. After opening night, regular shows continue through July 17 at 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; .7 p.m. Wednesdays; and .8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The Rubicon Theatre is at 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. Tickets cost $25-$30 for previews, $175 for opening night (includes a post-show party with the cast) and $27-$48 for regular shows. For more information, call 667-2900 or visit the Web site, http://www.rubicontheatre.org.

presented by and at the Rubicon Theatre, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. Wed. 2 & 7 p.m., Thu.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 & 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Oct. 16-Nov. 7. $25-47. (805) 667-2900.

Ventura actor gets a chance to shine with Rubicon Theatre Company in classic Tennessee Williams play

By Karen Lindell, klindell@VenturaCountyStar.com
October 14, 2004

Armando Rey's biggest fear about his debut with the Rubicon Theatre Company isn't the spotlight on opening night, or acting with Stephanie Zimbalist, or flubbing his lines as Pancho in Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana."

It's the doors.

Doors are a directional problem backstage at the Rubicon Theatre.

"There are so many doors in the back, it's like a maze," said Rey, 33. "The stage manager joked that he's going to have to put out a sign that says, 'This way, stupid.' What if I get lost?"

So far, the Ventura resident has found his way onstage just fine, and he's also found his natural niche: acting.

Rubicon opened its doors wide to Rey after he wowed everyone at his audition — with a monologue they didn't even understand because it was entirely in Spanish.

Aspiring actor Rey, who's performed in many Los Angeles productions, and locally in shows by Teatro de las Americas (an Oxnard-based troupe that stages Spanish-language plays), called the Rubicon last year and said he was interested in auditioning for a play there.

A few months ago, Rubicon called him to audition for "The Night of the Iguana," which opens the company's 2004-05 season.

Rey, who had to perform a two-minute monologue for the audition, picked the highlights from a 20-minute speech he'd done in Teatro de las Americas' "Primavera Con Una Esquina Rota" ("Spring With a Corner Torn").

His character in the play was a man imprisoned for taking part in the 1970s student political movement in Uruguay. During the monologue, the man writes a letter to his father, confessing that he's killed his cousin, who worked for the government.

In "Night of the Iguana," Rey's character, Pancho, speaks Spanish, but that's not the reason he chose a Spanish monologue. "I thought it was important for them to see my range as an actor," he said, "and that monologue has very different ranges — flashbacks to when this guy was laughing and happy playing with his cousin, and to the moment he kills his cousin."

When he was done with the emotionally draining monologue, Rey didn't hear, "Don't call us, we'll call you." Instead, director Jim O'Neil invited him right then to join the cast.

"I rarely do that," said O'Neil. "This was one of those exceptional times; he was so engaging."

Rey has a minor role in "The Night of the Iguana." But as English professor Barry Ulanov noted about Williams' plays in "Makers of the Modern Theater," "not only are the central actors important but (also) the men and women who slink behind the scrim, who play delicate obbligatos to the large solo roles."

The "large" roles in "Iguana" are four characters who meet in the summer of 1940 on the veranda of the Costa Verde hotel, a seedy seaside resort in Mexico.

The main character, the Rev. Lawrence Shannon (played by Richard Eden), is an Episcopal minister who's been defrocked because of his sexual dalliances. Nearing a nervous breakdown, he arrives at the hotel seeking empathy from the owner, an old friend. The friend has died, however, leaving behind his wife, Maxine, to run the hotel.

Shannon then encounters Hannah Jelkes (Stephanie Zimbalist), a penniless, unmarried artist, and her 97-year-old grandfather, Nonno (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), a poet-philosopher who's writing his last great poem.

Shannon and Jelkes are drawn to each other, but the lusty Maxine beckons as well.

Pancho and his friend Pedro are hired hands at the hotel. They also provide Maxine with favors that have nothing to do with manual labor.

"We do a lot of night swimming together," said Rey cryptically.

Many critics and scholars call "The Night of the Iguana," which opened on Broadway at the Royale Theater in 1961, Williams' last great play. The show earned three Tony Award nominations, including best play, and a Drama Critics Circle Award for Williams, who'd already won Pulitzer prizes for "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

"The Night of the Iguana," although hardly a comedy, is considered more optimistic than Williams' other plays because the ending, if not happy, is at least hopeful.

As in many of Williams' works, the play is about the desperation of humans who, like the iguanas literally tethered in "The Night of the Iguana," are at the end of their rope.

In 1972, Williams wrote that "essentially my plays have been an effort to explore the beauty and meaning of the confusion of living."

The "Iguana" characters are tormented souls crippled by sexual desires but also by deeper questions of life, death and what it means to be human.

Pancho and Pedro contribute to the sexual tension, but they also "liven up the play a little when it gets too heavy," Rey said.

Rey laughed when talking about Pancho's Spanish-only lines. When his friends who don't speak Spanish heard he was working with Rubicon, Rey said, they were glad because they thought he'd be performing in English for once.

Rey, a relative latecomer to the acting profession, has performed mainly in Spanish or bilingual productions.

A Camarillo native who hammed it up at home as a kid, he didn't step on a stage until after he had graduated from Rio Mesa High School. His first play was a Spanish version of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" at the Santa Paula Theater Center in 1990.

He played Stanley in Teatro de las Americas' Spanish-language version of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" and has worked with theater companies in Los Angeles including the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, Nosotros and Frida Kahlo Theatre. He's also done commercials in Spanish for Sears, Blockbuster, Ford, McDonald's and Carl's Jr.

In April, he played Bernardo in the Ventura College Opera Workshop's production of "West Side Story," his first singing and dancing role. According to "West Side Story" director Mel Swope: "Bernardo has the opportunity to be both humorous and serious. Rey did both very well."

Like many actors waiting for their big break, Rey has a day job, although it's not waiting tables. He works as a teacher's aide for special-education classes at Channel Islands High School.

Rey is somewhat optimistic about opportunities for Hispanic actors.

"I think it's opening up, but just when I think people are becoming more aware of Latino actors," he said, "I'll see an actor who doesn't even speak the language playing a role in Spanish."

Rey doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a Latino actor.

"I would love to get calls for auditions that have nothing to do with color. If you can bring a character to life, who cares what color you are anyway?" he said.

Swope agreed. "The more people realize his depth, the more opportunities he'll have," he said.

Rey said that Rubicon, although it's cast him in a Spanish-speaking role, is a top-name theater company that's giving his career a boost. "I'm grateful someone in my city gave me this opportunity," he said. "Some places don't even open the door, or they slam it in your face. Here they rolled out the red carpet."

"THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA"

The Rubicon Theatre Company opens its 2004-05 season with Tennessee Williams' classic play. The show has previews at 8 p.m. Oct. 14-15, then opens at 7 p.m. Oct. 16. Regular performances continue at 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 7 at 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. For tickets, $25-$47, call 667-2900.

Get two Zimbalists for the price of one

By Karen Lindell
October 14, 2004

Two A-list Zimbalists are central characters in the Rubicon Theatre Company's production of "The Night of the Iguana."

Stephanie Zimbalist and her father, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., are starring onstage together for the first time.

Although she and her dad have acted together in films and television, Stephanie Zimbalist said, a father-daughter stage pairing didn't work out until now.

In "The Night of the Iguana," Zimbalist plays Hannah, a watercolor and sketch artist who travels around with her grandfather Nonno, a poet. As they wander from one hotel to another, she paints and he waxes poetic in exchange for a room.

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is a Broadway veteran whose first professional role was in 1946 with Spencer Tracy in "The Rugged Path." He starred in several movies in the 1950s and 1960s, and two television shows, "77 Sunset Strip" and "The FBI."

Stephanie Zimbalist, best known for her role opposite Pierce Brosnan on television's "Remington Steele," has starred in many theatrical productions. Her most recent role at Rubicon was in "Defying Gravity" in 2003.

Zimbalist said her relationship with her father onstage is purely professional.

"Acting with my dad doesn't affect me much; we don't make concessions for each other," she said. "We follow our instincts."

She doesn't deny the family ties, however.

"It's a bonus spending all this wonderful time together," said L.A. resident Zimbalist, whose parents live in Solvang. "We see each other every day, and the theater is a very cozy experience."

Nick Weissman, 
Brooks Institute of 
Photography

"It's a bonus spending 
all this wonderful time 
together," says 
Stephanie Zimbalist of 
the chance to act with 
dad Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 
in Rubicon Theatre's 
"The Night of the 
Iguana."