6th Street Playhouse of Santa Rosa will be presenting the Bay area premiere of local playwright David Beckman's Becoming Walt Whitman, on October 8 through October 24. With the recent release of the film HOWL about Allen Ginsberg's 1950s beat masterpiece, Whitman is on many minds. HOWL, of course, was famously influenced by Whitman, and Whitman, in his day, was as controversial as Mr. Ginsberg for some of the same reasons: speaking bluntly and openly about sexual matters, including masturbation and homosexuality.
In the 6th Street Playhouse production, Walt Whitman will be portrayed by actor Gabriel Grilli who brings a long history of professional experience to the part. Recently, I chatted with Mr. Grilli over morning coffee and bagels at the very bohemian Atlas Cafe in the Mission District of San Francisco, where he resides.
After spending many years working mostly as a director in New York, Mr. Grilli moved to the Bay area three years ago and turned his focus to acting. After New York, he finds much to like in the Bay area theatre scene.
"I enjoy that the Bay Area theatre community is not centralized," he explains. "There are so many communities all over the Bay who have unique and dedicated audiences who really know the actors. Its rewarding to have audiences like that."
Among his favorite recent Bay area roles was that of Hook in the much-admired Berkeley Playhouse production of the musical Peter Pan. He is also looking forward to performing as the M.C. in the musical Cabaret later this year.
"I love to go back and forth between musicals and 'straight' theatre," he explains. In New York, he worked as actor, dancer, singer and choreographer and founded Venus Fly Trap theatre and dance company.
About playing Whitman, Mr. Grilli states that "Whitman is fun because he's not a villain. I've been playing a lot of those."
About playing a poet, he notes, "I'm an amateur poet myself. Poets have a different relationship with words than the rest of us. There is a similarity between actors and writers. We closely observe human behavior."
The play, he tells me, does address Walt Whitman's sexuality.
"It's significant. Being different - knowing this difference - had a great deal to do with his becoming an artist. In the play, Walt explains that he is not afraid of his own scandalous dreams. He believes in the value of unmasking inner emotions and thoughts. He says that he writes to defeat shame."
Declining to discuss his own sexuality, Mr. Grilli says, "I don't want people to know. As an actor, I try to embody whomever I play. I hope audiences will experience that."
Local playwright David Beckman has an impressive resume, and the premiere is awaited with enthusiastic expectation. A poet and novelist as well as playwright, he is a graduate of both Brown University and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. His plays have been performed in New York and California. His first novel, Under Pegasus, was published by Derrynane Books in 1996. He is working on a second, On Quaker Road, about the Underground Railroad of North Carolina.
For further information, click here. —Charles Kruger
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