Simon Levy: The Voice of Conscience

By Cynthia Citron

For ReviewPlays.com
And Jewishsightseeing.com

        Simon Levy signs his emails with “Peace and Passion.”    And that’s about as fitting an epithet for the man and his values as one could find.

Levy, who is a playwright/director/producer/actor, is currently Producing Director/Dramaturg for the Fountain Theatre, which, as I’ve said many times, is just about the best little theater in Los Angeles.  (And what is a dramaturg, you might ask.  In a nutshell, he’s the one who adapts a play for production and sees to it that the playwright’s vision is adhered to.)

Levy’s current offering at the Fountain is “What I Heard About Iraq”, a political drama he adapted from an article by Eliot Weinberger.  With humor and horror, and with their own words, Levy chronicles the Bush administration’s run-up to and handling of the current war.  It’s a tale of negligent indifference, cynicism, and of “catastrophic success,” as the president puts it.  It’s also a stirring demonstration of Levy’s own passion. 
“What informs my work?” Levy asks rhetorically.  A determination to “understand ‘the other’,” he says.  “To challenge myself with something that ‘can’t be done’.  It’s the 15-year-old rebel in me. 
“I have no desire to walk in the meadow,” he continues.  “I walk along the cliff edge; I test limits.  And as a director, I will be there to catch you if you fall.”

Simon Levy began life in Surrey, England, but came to America with his mother at the age of two.  He grew up in San Francisco, attending City College and San Francisco State as a music major.  As a jazz musician on the alto sax, he played on the streets of the city and with a rock band.  But he had to walk through the lobby of the college’s theater to get to the  music department, and he got “captured”.  Changing his direction, he acquired his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater at State, with an emphasis on directing.  He also pursued anthropology, specializing in indigenous cultures, and became what he calls an “anthro-dramatist.”

As an actor for 10 years, he toured with San Francisco Shakes, a local Shakespeare company, and spent seven years with the celebrated Beach Blanket Babylon company, which he considers “a baptismal into every aspect of theater, from selling tickets to serving as general manager.  It gave me a grounding in understanding what it takes to make theater happen,” he says.

“Next to stand-up comics, actors are the bravest creatures on the planet,” he says.  As an actor, you have to “effect change to people sitting in the audience and convince them that you really are whatever it is you’re pretending to be.”

Somewhere around this time he began writing screenplays for B movies.  “They run now on the USA Channel late at night,” he says.  He also wrote screenplays using a pseudonym.  “Are you going to tell us the name you used?” I asked.  “Certainly not!” he answered with a laugh.

Under his own name, however, he has had a string of successes and has won an impressive collection of prestigious awards.  He has adapted a trilogy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s works, the only ones to be officially sanctioned by the Fitzgerald Estate.  (“I understand Fitzgerald,” Levy says.  “It’s a guy thing.  He understood the complexity of man.”)  Levy’s plays range from “The Beethovens”, about Beethoven’s passion for his sister-in-law, to “Betrayed” or How America Betrayed Benedict Arnold, to “Cry of the Giraffe”, about pedophilia,  to “Jazz Crazy”, a fictional story of a blues singer of the 1920s and ‘30s.  There is also “She-Who-Is-Made-Of-Clay”, a play that Levy calls “the little play that could.”  It deals with a shaman from the Yokuts Indians---native Americans are another of Levy’s cultural passions.

As a director he is responsible for the Fountain’s acclaimed productions of Terrence McNally’s “Master Class”, Lee Blessing’s “Going to St. Ives” and Lynne Kaufman’s “Daisy in the Dreamtime.”  (His current girlfriend is the beautiful redhead who starred in that production, Lisa Pelikan.)  And as a producer, he brought the world premiere of Athol Fugard’s “Exits and Entrances” to Los Angeles.

At present, he says, his focus is on social and political issues, classic works that reflect various communities and evoke “a strong psycho-emotional response.”  He is consumed by “what it means to be an American, what the American dream is about, what’s happening to the idea of America…”  From these concerns has evolved “What I Heard About Iraq.”

“My soul is aching and crying out,” he says.  “I needed to provide a cognitive map so everyone can see the journey.  To condense it to an experience we can hold in our hands, get it into our bodies.  Embrace it and ‘get it’.  It’s what the Greeks called catharsis.”

He believes that our “new Crusade” in Iraq is “no different from the 9th, 10th, or 11th century crusades.  We are there all over again and we will all have to suffer the consequences.

“But action is the antidote,” he says.  “I believe one person does make a difference.  Our choice is to cry out or be silent.  But a cry can become a shout can become a roar. And I believe our leaders will follow the people if the people’s voice is strong enough.  If we changed military might to humanitarian might, can you imagine how much good we could do?”

“I believe most people have common sense.  They want to be good people, live a good life.  We can’t give up.  It’s crunch time: time to step up to the plate and bam that ball!

“My intention was to attack the war head on,” he concludes.  “Great theater is about three things: love, fear, and anger.  First and foremost, an artist wants to express himself.  And theater is a primary outlet for the soul and the heart.” 
Simon Levy bares his soul and his heart every time he enters a theater.  He does it with intelligence, humor, and charm.  And so persuasively that everyone “gets” it.

So cry, people!  Shout!  Roar!