Theater Fixture Brustein Brings Repertoire to Harvard

As a child, no one would have predicted that Professor of English Robert S. Brustein would become one of the most eminent figures in the theater world.

In elocution classes intended to correct a lisp that caused him to pronounce all Ls and Rs, he fell in love with performing.

"Once bitten by that bug, you're bitten for life," Brustein says.

Anyone who has enjoyed a play at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) has benefited from the efforts of Brustein.

Helen E. Shaw '98, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, says Brustein has developed the academic side of theater.

"Brustein has created what we know today as theater that is not Broadway," Shaw says. "He is responsible for the acceptance of many of the revolutionary theater groups."

Brustein's development of the repertory theater, his prolific literary criticism and his acting theories have affected the course of theater over the past several decades.

"He has had great influence on theater. He has dragged the theater kicking and screaming into the 21st century," says Jeremy Geidt, a professor and an actor with the ART company who has worked with Brustein since 1966.

Brustein is the founding director of the American Repertory Theater, based on Brattle Street in Cambridge, and the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven.

Currently, he is the artistic director for the ART. He raises money for the company, chooses plays and adapts many of the plays that the ART performs.

"[The repertory theater] came out of my belief that you could not run a theater program properly unless you had a model," Brustein says. "We wanted to embody ideas that we were trying to instill in students in the theater."

Students study at the Institute for Advanced Theater Training, at which he also teaches, while participating in the shows at the ART. After graduation, some join the company.

"When you have a core of actors that work together over a period of time," Brustein says, "they form a unit or an organism that helps to realize a Chekhov or a Shakespeare better than through another approach."

Brustein says he aims to create an environment in which, contrary to some of his own experiences, actors are treated with dignity and respect.

Brustein has published many books on theater and its movements. He has been the theater critic for The New Republic since 1959.

Brustein says that over the years, he has struggled to create an alternative to "commercial theater," which he describes as solely devoted to making profits.

He says he believes theater should, instead, be "motivated to make works of art," a goal aided by the establishment of permanent acting companies.

Involved in several aspects of performance, Brustein acts, directs and plays the clarinet and tenor saxophone.

He says he believes strongly in the importance of theater to society.

"Actors create models of behaviors...they give us deeper insights into the human condition," Brustein says. "They are the ultimate interpreters of great plays...they are willing to have contact with their own emotions which is important in a repressed culture like our own."

Brustein's son, Daniel Brustein, says he has fond memories of times spent with his father during his childhood.

"He is a very warm, friendly, compassionate person," says Daniel Brustein, who works as an Internet Software Engineer for SonicNet Inc.

Geidt also emphasizes Brustein's open and interesting nature.

"He's tall, he can be extremely funny, a very good mimic, passionate...can have a hot temper," Geidt says. "He's a very strong mixture of many things."

Geidt says, as a director, Brustein gives actors many opportunities to give their input to the show and allows them freedom that enhances the work overall.

"He's not a dictatorial director," Geidt says. "It's a collaboration between the author, the playwright and the director."

Brustein grew up in Manhattan, New York. During his adolescent years and early twenties, he experimented as a musician and an actor.

He attended Amherst College where, during one of his theatrical performances, a theater agent offered to sign him on. Brustein said his parents did not want him to become an actor and encouraged him to refuse the offer.

After graduation, Brustein studied directing for one year at Yale Drama School, but then dropped out and dabbled in television.

"I thought the training at Yale was very old-fashioned. They had not heard of Stanislavsky," Brustein said. "It was all fans and feathers-restoration theater."

Brustein then decided to pursue a Ph.D in Jacobian Drama at Columbia. During this time, he travelled to England on a Fulbright Scholarship where he directed and began work as a critic.

Upon finishing his Ph.D, Brustein taught at Cornell University and Vassar College and finally returned to Yale in 1966 as Dean of the drama school that he had left years earlier.

"I had no intention of doing it, but my wife talked me into it," Brustein says. "It changed my life and my career."

At Yale, Brustein had more opportunities to act, mainly as an understudy.

As a professor, Brustein worked with students who have since become famous Hollywood stars. He taught Sigourney Weaver, Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep.

"I didn't think Jane Fonda had much of a future," Brustein says. "She was not able to tap into her emotions." Brustein says he called her "Frigid Jane."

In 1979, Brustein's term as Dean ended. He moved to Harvard with some members of the Yale Repertory, planning to start the ART.

"I love the Charles River," Brustein says "Harvard is a beautiful, glorious place."

He adds that the challenge of starting a theater in a city which had no major professional theater company enticed him to move to Boston.

Brustein says Bostonians are not generally receptive to theater. According to Brustein, Puritan severity and intolerance of the arts are still alive and well in the city.

Brustein praises Harvard undergraduates, however, for their commitment to the theater.

"Harvard undergraduates are incredibly active in the theater and energized by the theater," Brustein says.

Shaw, an anthropology concentrator, works with Brustein for her research tutorial, 91r.

"He's unbelievably easy to talk to," Shaw says. "He has been a great mentor to me."

Daniel Brustein said his father feels passionately about teaching and enjoys talking with students.

"Passing on his knowledge is one of the things that keeps him going," he says.