Peter Sellars discusses his job at the Los Angeles Festival

Studs Terkel I guess at least for me, the most imaginative, the most--certainly the most daring and the most provocative and the most outrageous--

Peter Sellars Oh no!

Studs Terkel Now theater people as Peter Sellars. Peter Sellars you recall, Chicagoans do, uh, uh, for two--two moments and they were rather indelible moments in operatic history. One is his interpretation of "The Mikado" and in which it was contemporary. There they were. Northwest [ori?]-Airlines.

Peter Sellars [laughter]

Studs Terkel Gentlemen Japan wore three piece suits had some Seiko, um, uh, cameras that had Sony cassettes. And you know what? It worked. And the other time was his "Tannhauser". Which just about the time of the televangelist scandals too. And "Tannhauser", sort of a Jimmy Swaggart. And there is Venus and it's not Venusberg, it's just a cheap hotel room but just about right too. And I'm thinking about Peter Sellars and his new project always new and so seeing you again.

Peter Sellars Studs, it's great to see you again. [laughter]. It's great to see.

Studs Terkel There's all, all sorts of challenges.

Peter Sellars There's lots happening. There's a lot happening. Now I'm in Los Angeles, I've been there for about two years now and, uh, it is one of the most exciting places on the face of the earth to be, because you go there and it's Deadsville. It's nothing. You can't find any other city in the world you walk into town and you make three--oh--three calls from your hotel room and you can find out what's going on that night. Not Los Angeles. You have no idea what's going on. The only way you learn about it is four days later they say, "Oh did you see this last night?" and you say, "No what about it?" So, "Well it's over with now and it was great." And Los Angeles is impossible to penetrate. Most people say, "Oh there's no culture there." And that's the first thing that makes you interested. That's the first thing you say, "Well now wait a minute, there's got to be something there. What's really going on?" And I took a job there two years ago to run something called the Los Angeles Festival which started out as the Olympic Arts Festival which remained the biggest arts festival ever held in the country really to this point, 1984, for the big Olympics there. Then they did a little festival in 1987 and now we're following up three years later with the 1990 Los Angeles Festival which will be September, first two weeks of September.

Studs Terkel See it's natural that Peter Sellars thinks of Los Angeles as the most fascinating city because the, the ritualistic approach to tradition is L.A., we equate it with Hollywood, dullest, softest custard son,

Peter Sellars [Laughter]

Studs Terkel Forgetting that is Hispanic city. It is an Asiatic city.

Peter Sellars What's interesting--

Studs Terkel It's an African city.

Peter Sellars What's interesting there is the patterns of immigration. I mean in the same way New York and in fact even Chicago established their cultural hegemony by really being, uh, uh, home to Italians, to Germans, to Polish people, to, to, to, to Russians and now of course big, the big culture in America you know is the Metropolitan Opera the Lyric Opera playing Verdi and the orchestra playing Mahler the same way here the next generation's immigrants for the next 150 years are coming from Asia or coming from Latin America and the place where those to--

Studs Terkel And Africa.

Peter Sellars Oh, and well, and Africa although again we have tremendous population of African-Americans here now and the, uh, what's exciting is the place where these all of these points are meeting is Los Angeles where the immigration is coming from, from all directions now.

Studs Terkel So you, do you do you spot something, there's something prescient about Peter Sellars. He sees something in me and something--we think of Europe, America and the European culture and New York and the Jewish tradition and culture and the Italian at one and all that is there--European--and has in a sense been that way.

Peter Sellars Absolutely.

Studs Terkel But now you're saying it's shifting and another kind of culture which involves another kind of participation and un-participation.

Peter Sellars Exactly. I think the next, the next hundred years in this country, the next century, not only is Los Angeles going to be the sort of New York of the next century as it were, the sort of economic capital and so on. I mean that's already happening already there's more trade that goes out of the Port of Los Angeles than goes out of any point on the East Coast. The question now is, is there a cultural basis for this new Pacific Rim we keep hearing about?

Studs Terkel Pacific Rim?

Peter Sellars Pacific Rim. Is that an economic and political term? Or is that really cultural? What exists? What ties that together? This new area of the world which has this kind of hegemony. And we spent the last two years researching. It's been one of the most interesting things I've ever embarked on in my life. And you're right that the numbers alone are stunning. You have the largest population of Koreans outside of Korea in Los Angeles, the largest population of Cambodians outside Cambodia in Los Angeles, the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran, in Los Angeles. The largest population Filipinos outside of the Philippines. The largest population of Burmese outside of Burma. The largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. The lar--the second largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel. The second largest population of Afro-Americans outside of Washington D.C. the largest population of Native Americans in any urban setting in America.

Studs Terkel Yeah.

Peter Sellars You can go on with the list. The astounding thing is who is there right now.

Studs Terkel Yeah. What interests me also about what you're saying is that there is a slight difference here to your sense in how this other world new--the new world is funny. New world. The old, old world--now the new world!

Peter Sellars Right.

Studs Terkel Because the world is round after all.

Peter Sellars Well, that's what's interesting and what, what, what I think the point of this festival is going to be. When I first got to town I announced that there would be no European and no east coast culture in this festival. And everyone gasped. In fact there was a member of the board who said, "But Peter, we're concerned about quality." Which is just shocking.[laughter.]

Studs Terkel What revealing. That tells you everything about the question.

Peter Sellars It really does.

Studs Terkel The person who asked it.

Peter Sellars It really does.

Studs Terkel That quality.

Peter Sellars And, and, and, and you know, and now, and now this is the point, is to say, you know not only is, it's not that there's no culture in Los Angeles, there's different culture. It's another cultural model.

Studs Terkel You don't mind, very quick, to connect what you say, there was a folk fest--a folk song festival I emceed this first night as I did 30 years ago. Now a little group came called Roberto Clemente High School, and that's mostly Puerto Rican kids there. But 20 years ago it was a Jewish high school called [Tully?]. Now there was a European cut--out of it came a Nobel laureate and others and there was a culture, European, and brilliant and great and then the neighborhood changed! People are saying, 'Oh God what happened to the culture of the old?' They were playing these--Puerto Ricans are playing steel drums--steel drums that were found in the garbage cans or in the alleys and they made music with it and they got a standing ovation.

Peter Sellars Well, that comes from a notion--

Studs Terkel --So

Peter Sellars there was the culture, that's what you're talking about-- And so they went from a notion of culture, it comes from a notion of culture which is not primarily about artists being professionals distinct from the society and alienated from the society. But in fact every living soul in the society is an artist. Everybody makes their own costume. Everybody sings. Everybody joins in and is part of an event. I mean the, the, the way culture has developed in the Pacific of course is so different from the European model, is for one thing? It's, it's nice outside. So at night you don't have to like build a concert hall and go in and huddle together, but it's always part of an environmental interaction. You're always part of the landscape, part of nature. There's a very intense wanting to be together with the earth. And, and, and, and a, uh real connection to her.

Studs Terkel Now how would this work? You are a theater, and by a theater--this theater in the broadest sense.

Peter Sellars This is the largest show I was ever on, yes.

Studs Terkel Of course this could be street theater as well and free theater as well.

Peter Sellars That's the thing. We'll make 70 percent of the festival free of charge to the public and we'll have it happening all over Los Angeles.

Studs Terkel Like on streets as well?

Peter Sellars In streets, in parks, in churches, in community centers. For example, uh, most people living in Los Angeles don't know I've never been to the Thai temple in the valley. There, you're driving along the freeway and suddenly these, you know, astonishing tongues of flame are rising out of the mouths of golden serpents, uh, you know, vaunting towards the sky and you say what's that? Well, you get off the freeway and it turns out there's a Thai temple there between a gas station, too many malls, and the Thai communities built in the last three years and it is their place. And it is a sacred place. But it's also, you know, first of all the best food in Los Angeles on the weekends. Families take turns, it's, that'd, they signed up for months ahead. To have a booth there and sell food, and, you've just, you've never eaten like this in your life! [laughter] and it's a fantastic place where there's a full scale mural program the kids are always making all these new murals around that area. Uh, it's, it's just fascinating but again it's this beautiful notion of art as part of life. Art not as a separate category.

Studs Terkel And so the people who, who go there, that are the audience,

Peter Sellars Right.

Studs Terkel Are participants as well.

Peter Sellars Are participants. And it's part of, and, and culture means food. Culture means kids running around. Culture means, you know, a whole scene, not just, you know, an official program with two items on it.

Studs Terkel Have you heard of Joan Littlewood?

Peter Sellars Oh sure, of course.

Studs Terkel Well, you know Joan Littlewood had that dream that you are fulfilling. In, off the Thames, along it, she has something she had something she planned to call Vauxhall Gardens.

Peter Sellars Yes.

Studs Terkel You know about it?

Peter Sellars Oh yes.

Studs Terkel The very thing you're talking about.

Peter Sellars Well, you see, I think in L.A. we can do it. I mean, it begins, first of all the neighborhoods are in place. I mean what's shocking about Los Angeles is the most segregated city I've ever lived in in my life.

Studs Terkel How long you been in Chicago?

Peter Sellars [laughter] Now, but you know? In Chicago at least people have to, like, go through other sections of town on their way to somewhere. Thing about Los Angeles is these freeways. Is you never go through anything and most people living in Los Angeles, know, start from their, their point of departure and go to their destination and see nothing along the way. But this freeway, which has walls on either side, so you don't see anybody else's neighborhood. And the result is that most people in Los Angeles, their experience in the city actually not firsthand, it's what they see on TV. And so they see "Beverly Hills Cop," they see 24-hour gang war and they don't think anything in between. Meanwhile, there are all of these neighborhoods with real families living real lives with, you know, incredible, you know, real dignity and, and, and, and you know, it's a real place.

Studs Terkel So, how specific? I mean, I know, I realize that there's a broad frame you're, you're offering--

Peter Sellars No, it's specific.

Studs Terkel Now, specifically, this is a festival.

Peter Sellars It's a festival--

Studs Terkel It takes place in Los Angeles--

Peter Sellars We're having--

Studs Terkel A theater festival.

Peter Sellars Well, it's theater, it's dance--

Studs Terkel How, how will it work?

Peter Sellars It's music. It's, it's, it will go for sixteen days the first two weeks of September for three weekends, and it will be outdoors. Uh, most of it will have performers coming from all over the Pacific. We're bringing some of the most impressive cultural, uh, manifestations. I mean I must say, central Javanese court dance--a tradition that is so awesome and beautiful. It has not been seen before in the West--the bedoyo. You see nine women spending twenty minutes getting to stage center and every, every spiritual, uh, every, every spiritual implication of the number nine is conjugated before your very eyes.

Studs Terkel And done where? In a, in a--

Peter Sellars And, well, we're going to actually build a special pavilion out in the arboretum, you know, surrounded by peacocks and exotic birds.

Studs Terkel So are you thinking of the city topographically as well?

Peter Sellars Well, we're about--

Studs Terkel You're thinking that a certain place would be an arboretum.

Peter Sellars Exactly.

Studs Terkel A certain particular [unintelligible] will be near the lake or water.

Peter Sellars We're thinking of it as a, as a, as a cultural remapping of Los Angeles. We'll have stages on the beaches. We'll have stages--and you know, the interesting thing would be that the Latino show will not be in East L.A. but in Westwood. And, and, and meanwhile in East L.A., in the in the official Latino neighborhood, you know, we'll be showing the Balinese children.

Studs Terkel All the Latinos will be an area where there are no Latinos--

Peter Sellars And the Latinos will be by UCLA.

Studs Terkel Westwood I take it is upper middle class.

Peter Sellars Right, uh, very. [laughter] And, and, and it will be, you know, uh, we, we--we'll mix it up. We'll tour work through the city. So it moves past the burroughs and we'll have a huge bus program where, we're, we're making these art buses with RTD that have, uh, their own sound systems inside with--and we'll be broadcasting tapes, uh, by artists, and the buses will be decorated inside by artists so that riding the bus is an art experience.

Studs Terkel I guess when you say 'total theater,' this is what you're talking about.

Peter Sellars It's pretty total. And it means that we'll get people to parts of the city they never visited before. Get people out there, get people seeing what the neighborhoods are, getting people--because most people don't, can't walk into a neighborhood two neighborhoods over. They really don't know--

Studs Terkel You know what's so funny, as you're saying that, funny and great is that, you're talking about the non-European theaters, plural, so many. As against the European--European theater for the tradition. Who knows better than you? The idea that as an audience that watches, and sees.

Peter Sellars There's--

Studs Terkel Their act is partici--you're talking now about an audience that participates.

Peter Sellars That is part of the event, and feels free to be part of the event. And you know the main thing is it's very important to, you know, get to know the Koreans before there's Korean mayor. You know.

Studs Terkel Yeah.

Peter Sellars It's cheaper to get to know them now. It's cheaper to like, you know, get to be friends and just deal with it. And how can you make a deal with the Korean businessman until you know who they are and when they came from?

Studs Terkel You know we have to talk more about the Los Angeles Festival but also about Peter Sellars too and the different, uh, what the different bows in your quiver.

Studs Terkel There are a good number of them. Is that right? A quiver is in a bow.

Studs Terkel Yeah.

Studs Terkel I never got that right. How much [unintelligible] [father? farther?]

Peter Sellars No, no, bows, bows in a

Studs Terkel quiver. No, no, you're on the case-- Bows in a quiver, I guess. Peter Sell--we'll hear more of Peter Sellars as we go along. There are several chapters, infinite number to his life in, in the theater. [pause]. And so to resume with Peter Sellars, you are here by the way, visiting Chicago because you'll be, as I take it, offering some master classes at Northwestern University.

Peter Sellars Yes, I had a very kind invitation and I'm going to go. I mean it's so important for me to rub shoulders with students. Uh, I spend a lot of my time teaching. I had very great teachers. My life was really changed by teachers, and you feel you have to pay it back.

Studs Terkel From the very beginning you were six, puppet theater at ten and then at Harvard you were twenty. When would you do Lear? When'd you do Lear?

Peter Sellars That was the last thing I did at Harvard. Yes [laughter].

Studs Terkel Lear? So you were about twenty-one or so? Nineteen?

Peter Sellars It

Studs Terkel was a little while. Right. Funny thing, I'm reading about your Lear. Uh, there he is, in a Lincoln convertible, escaping.

Peter Sellars Yes.

Studs Terkel And it breaks down and somehow Lear's asleep, and breaks down, and Lear he goes to sleep in the cold under the car. The funny thing, I'm thinking how your mind works theatrically way back. The French director Jean-Louis Barrault was telling me about Louis Jouvet, the great actor-director.

Peter Sellars Oh yeah, yeah--

Studs Terkel

Peter Sellars Louis Jouvet-- Jouvet, Jouvet, yeah.

Studs Terkel Jouvet. Of his Oedipus and I thought of well, you. Because what Oedipus, in his Oedipus, as soon as he discovers that Jocasta, his queen, is his mother, the bed--the marriage bed on the stage-- explodes.

Peter Sellars Yeah.

Studs Terkel And that's what you're talking about, using the car that way.

Peter Sellars You know, and yeah. And then we blew up, we blew up the car. You know of course it's--the main thing is you want to just offer images of great classics to an American public that feel, Oh we know this. This isn't so strange. We really know this. We really live here.

Studs Terkel But--

Peter Sellars You wanted to allow people to live in the classics. I mean what's so great about a classic is, it is a classic it means that it still means something. It means that it's still powerful and, you know, it belongs to us. You know, it's not on the shelf belonging to someone else. It really does belong to us. We have inherited it and it's our job to take it out and retool it from time to time. You know that's our job, we have to keep it well oiled. And we have to live there.

Studs Terkel So when you did ""Tannhauser" here for the Lyric, your "Tannhauser"...I mean, uh, Wagner's Sellar's "Tannhauser".

Peter Sellars [laughter]

Studs Terkel Somewhat different than just a Wagner "Tannhauser".

Peter Sellars Well, you know--

Studs Terkel Well, you did! No it wasn't. It wasn't done to shock or that--it was done because you figured, There's something contemporary here.

Peter Sellars Well, I mean it's done just to be normal. You know, I mean, I mean, I prefer normalcy. Most people think, for example, this Los Angeles Festival is a giant utopian, you know, idea. In fact, no, it's a reality check. It's just saying, "S'cuse me ladies and gentlemen, these are the facts. This is actually what's happening." You know, this is not a daydream, it's not fantasy time. I'm not particularly interested in fantasy. I'm not particularly interested in daydreaming because it's very bad when a country gets in the habit of daydreaming and, and reality is so much more interesting, has so much more juice, and gets you so much farther.

Studs Terkel Now the reality you're talking about is it also a theatrical reality?

Peter Sellars Yeah.

Studs Terkel That of the theater--in having the, uh, Javanese group or the Cambodian group you were talking about.

Peter Sellars Well, I have to say--

Studs Terkel I suddenly discover, "Hey, wait a minute, this is part of this-- people whom we see every day in this community."

Peter Sellars Exactly. I mean, I'm bringing, I'm bringing a company six-thousand miles from Bangkok and putting them in the Thai temple. So people visit the Thai temple and then say, "Oh my gosh this is here every day." You know. I mean, and, and the other thing is--uh, this is a festival about stories. I mean--

Studs Terkel About what?

Peter Sellars Stories.

Studs Terkel Ah.

Peter Sellars I mean, right now, for example, that Cambodians living in Long Beach right now. When they came, they, they escaped the Pol Pot regime, they were destitute, they came. Most of them with family members missing with no money just barely surviving. When they got to California, the first thing they did before they built the housing complex is they formed a dance academy.

Studs Terkel Hm.

Peter Sellars Because that was the one thing that could never be taken away from them. That was the one thing that you could move as a Cambodian. And the way you held your body, the way you moved, defined your culture identity and who you were.

Studs Terkel So that helped them survive?

Peter Sellars Absolutely. And it was their--to them, it was the first step of any survival process. Now one of the things, of course, that will be very moving in the festival is we've, uh, we all thought that the Royal Cambodian dance academy in Phnom Penh had been destroyed. It was the first thing that Pol Pot went for because it's always been under the protectorship of the Prince. And as an image of kind of royal patronage. So, Pol Pot literally killed all the dancers, destroyed all the costumes, all the sets. Amazingly, we learned eleven months ago that the company is now being rebuilt. They found one seventy-five-year old woman who remembers how to make the costumes.

Studs Terkel So, not only survival, it's the resilience.

Peter Sellars It's the resilience--

Studs Terkel Through art!

Peter Sellars Through art. And, and suddenly, you know, two younger, two women in their twenties are beginning to make the costumes.

Studs Terkel Yeah.

Peter Sellars There is a new generation of dancers. One of the old ballet masters is still surviving. And, and when I asked them if they could bring a full program, you know, one of the astonishing evening-length Cambodian ballets. They can't. They don't have the costumes yet. They don't have the cast yet. They'll bring excerpts. But what we can do is create a situation where those, if not a joint recital, there's a kind of final gathering of some of the master musicians here playing with the company from Phnom Penh and, a meaning.

Studs Terkel You see, also, you're talking here about art being as necessary as bread and wine. Or I guess, would be helpful, would be bread and milk which you said. But I think that, that's part of it. Harrison Salisbury writes during the nine hundred day siege of Leningrad during World War Two, what kept them going is the voice of this woman named Olga on the public address system. Reading poetry.

Peter Sellars Absolutely. And you know and the fact is one thing that America got a little wrong from time to time is, it's assumed that that if you deal with economic and political issues first, culture religion will take care of themselves. It's actually not true. What happens is the pecking order should be reversed. Culture and spiritual life have to come first and then an economic and political will follow. And until people are culturally equal they'll never be politically equal.

Studs Terkel So when that mem--board member said to you and you said, "Oh no more European stuff for now if you don't mind because it's altering. What have the, uh, Asian, African, and the Hispanic." He said, "What about the quality?"

Peter Sellars I know, its--

Studs Terkel We've come to that again.

Peter Sellars It's astounding. I mean it's astounding and again that sort of building racism is, is, is still the number one problem in America. Let's face it. Let's deal with it now. You know, it's really time to come out from these armed fortresses. It is now time. I mean, frankly, Los Angeles right now can either be the ultimate Tower of Babel which collapses in on itself or it has the chance to be the first new society. And this is the choice then what's interesting is this choice has been given to this generation. It's not that it's going to happen later and it's clear that it didn't happen earlier. And so it has to happen now.

Studs Terkel You know the old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

Peter Sellars Right, well.

Studs Terkel And it's been visited upon us and you're saying, it could be a blessing perhaps or a curse.

Peter Sellars Well, let's put it this way. It's our choice. It's our choice of whether we decide to enter. Whether we will stand off and stand apart and retreat and create a society of alienation and isolation or whether we enter and engage.

Studs Terkel And you are saying something, connection with this, or you mentioned the word storytelling. I guess one of things that is missing today is the story teller what with sound bites, and, uh,

Peter Sellars See and these Cambodians--

Studs Terkel Story telling!

Peter Sellars These Cambodian refugees have real stories to tell. I mean what's interesting is on TV every night it's the same buddy cop story. And in fact there's a whole new group of people living here now who have real stories who have just escaped with their lives and are living as refugees. And we have a problem is that, is that when in the thirties and forties the cream of European intellectuals came to America as refugees, artists, musicians, writers. Sol Hurok saw to it that Yehudi Menuhin could play his violin in Carnegie Hall. Right now we have a who's who of third world master artists living in America washing dishes, waiting on tables, and working as maids. And it's because they have no way to enter the large cultural system. We now have to really insist that the cultural distribution system begin to match the lives of the people for whom it's designed to serve.

Studs Terkel The whole thing in storytell--People have stories to tell. You spoke of a class of very bright, white, middle-class kids, European background asked to define heroes and difficult--

Peter Sellars I know, it was with my UCLA class.

Studs Terkel We know then the civil rights struggle. We know they were the, uh escaped Cambo--others who survived--but stories to tell. Suppose we hear something. This is a folk song festival. Newport Oh God, sixty, thirty years ago. And Pete Seeger, young Pete Seeger then, in a tent behind the, uh, stage I'm asking about something happening. He says, "Something is missing." I went to the story--Why don't we hear his voice for a moment, it'll set you off, Peter.

Peter Sellars Oh wow.

Pete Seeger Sorry to say I don't know much about telling stories. Uh, gradually now in my forty-one years I've just barely learned how to, just a little bit, tell a story but it's taken me all this time to learn. Uh, a child learns how to talk and they talk the whole time. A man buys an automobile and he rides and forgets how to use his legs. And the fact is, let's face it: Printing was invented and people, a lot of people forgot how to tell stories. You don't need to tell stories to your children at night, you buy them a twenty-five cent book at the local drugstore or, or, buy them a phonograph record, or switch on the radio or TV. You don't have to use your brains anymore. Uh, you don't have to make music obviously. You don't have to be an athlete anymore. You turn on the TV and watch the best athletes in the world. Watch them use their muscles and you sit back and grow a pot belly. Uh, you don't need to be witty anymore. You turn on the TV and watch an expert be witty. You don't need to be witty any more. And of course the crowning shame of it all is for a man and wife to sit back and watch the expert lover and make pretend to make love on the little screen man.

Studs Terkel Yeah.

Peter Sellars Wow. My gosh. I mean, and again, this is the issue of, is this going to be the world's most important passive society? Or can we return to a level of activism which actually is the one thing that actually turns out to make life worth living. I mean, it looks hard at first and then you do it and then it's such a relief. You look at it and say like, "Oh my gosh. You know this wasn't so hard at all." You know, it's just entering in right now. Obviously there are a bunch of things that aren't going to go away. And, you know, our question is just the quality, the quality of our engagement.

Studs Terkel You--you're saying a passive society or active. We come to--we come to those two.

Peter Sellars Yeah and you know, and frankly, action is so much more interesting. You know let's face it.

Studs Terkel For your return to Los Angles a minute, when asked what other of your, God knows adventures theatrically. So they're--the audience that people--the audience being of course people live in Los Angeles. Everybody.

Peter Sellars Really is. And it's, and it's, a way of, of, of just announcing publicly--and again, please, I have nothing as European culture I mean I spend my life staging Mozart and Wagner. I mean you know, please, it's my bread and butter certainly. And where I live and what and what I grew up with. But I have to say it, it encourages me to want to look at non-Western culture as even a way of rethinking Western culture and maybe some, some, some ideas we have about that that have turned out not to be too useful. At the same time the point is anyone's interested in culture at all, why interest in cultures? Because you want to meet people, you want to meet other people, you want to know other people, you want to know you're not alone, you want to know that someone else has thought these things, you're not the only person who's thought this. The whole idea of theater is, you know, for three hours you're in the other guy's shoes. And that's really the key here, is you know to start trying on some different shoes and, and just see how interesting it is because that starts to move the big picture.

Studs Terkel It's funny, as you say this--'cause I'm thinking--I'm--I know the different portraits of you in some way you, you were speaking of James Baldwin. I remember you saying, you just said a moment ago that you're in someone else's shoes. What--try out the other shoes. "Nobody Knows My Name" his essay as he says, you know, we know more about you. We know all about you. And you know about us because people talk in front of the woman who is serving.

Peter Sellars Right.

Studs Terkel Unless you weren't there.

Peter Sellars Right.

Studs Terkel And because she knows, and they know nothing about her.

Peter Sellars Right.

Studs Terkel And so you're saying here is a question of finding out--

Peter Sellars How many people know the names of the janitors who come clean their offices everyday? [laughter]. You know, that's a, that's a real question. At the same time, you know, there is this sense that there is so much now to be said and learned because right now in America we've learned that we're not the leading country in the world anymore. It's not that simple. That, everybody's an independent right now and it really is, we don't have a choice. We have to be thinking globally because a tiny country in the corner of the world can suddenly create a crisis upon which we're all depending. So the issue is, you know, now that page 2, 3, and 4 the newspaper everyday has an article on Bolivia or Colombia. What else do we know about Colombia? Nothing. Who lives there? What does it feel like? What's going on? I wanted to create this festival as a way of answering what people are thinking about in Colombia. We need information now. We need to see other images of these countries besides the drug war. We need to know really what's going on in a deep, in a cultural way in a way that people offer themselves through art. And the other thing of course that's really tremendously important to me is this question of really examining what is out there in the Pacific. What is lurking? Is there another cultural model, a societal model, that we can begin to help us out of some of the corners we get painted into here. One thing that the intense spirituality in art that moves around the Pacific is extremely interesting. And we'll have, for example, a program with with an Aboriginal family from from Mornington Island in the north of Australia, and, on the same bill as say an Inupiat Eskimo family from King Island, Alaska.

Studs Terkel Hm.

Peter Sellars And suddenly people will be able to look at this dancing and singing from these opposite ends of the Pacific and make their own connections.

Studs Terkel And just say that, the idea is, the global aspect of knowing and making their own connections. I'd like to use the idea of the time we live now, the time you are in as a theater person, like more than a stage, it's the world itself--

Peter Sellars It really is.

Studs Terkel It is that, this may be a period, and the one analogous moment to me is the end of the 16th century when Galileo discovers that Copernicus is right and the world is not flat but round and that the earth is not the center of the universe. The earth!

Peter Sellars It's astounding.

Studs Terkel But it's part of a respectable--where is in now we're discovering there is no one country. There is no American century, or a Russian century, or a Chinese century but all part of this global, the center being the sun, and for what should be humanity and that you're talking about.

Peter Sellars Exactly. And once you realize that, you realize that what you thought was the margin is of course the center. And what you thought was the center is probably the margin. And suddenly you have to rethink it all. And that's why I'm interested in really redefining now the term 'mainstream' in America. And mainstream culture. Because the mainstream is a new river from a lot of different sources.

Studs Terkel Yeah, we gotta hit that some more. we're talking to Peter Sellars and he's here through the good offices of Northwestern where at this moment there's some master classes he's teaching but obviously his major interest at this moment is the Los Angeles--what's it called? The Los Angeles?

Peter Sellars The Los Angeles Festival.

Studs Terkel Festival. Which he's the overall director. Nineteen-ni--Ninety?

Peter Sellars First two Weeks of September 1990 and be there. It's really, 180 events happening in 16 days.

Studs Terkel And so we got to pick up on that. As we pick up with Peter Sellars, you were speaking of the global aspects of it and here we come again.

Peter Sellars Right. And just--

Studs Terkel What is mainstream? You know, what is mainstream?

Peter Sellars And where is that going? And, you know, and I, and I love the fact that frankly, for my generation, and for the generation behind mine, mainstream is a completely different thing than you know than it was for our parents. You know, we have it's ,it's not unusual to go and have Thai food. You know it's just, it's, it's normal. It's no big deal. And so you know, what, what else might that imply about our life choices? You know what--

Studs Terkel There's a place in Los Angeles and this was told by the former Commission of Immigration, name was Leonel Castillo, under Jimmy Carter. [Wouldn't be?] under Reagan. And he said, "There's a place in Los Angeles that sells kosher burritos. It is run by a Korean and its patrons are Black."

Peter Sellars [laughter] And that is really true.

Studs Terkel So that's what you're talking about.

Peter Sellars And I have to say one of the most moving things about this whole Los Angeles Festival has been, we've invited a lot of people to be stage center who are normally kept in the wings. And, and the response of artists and communities has been so powerful. One of the most impressive things about the festival is for example, where the money's raised. A couple of, you know, leading high class foundations who really declined to fund this. And what impresses me greatly is for example, $100,000 is being raised through the black churches of South Central Los Angeles in small vestry meetings. And you know, they're going to do better than 100 in fact. And, when a community like that which has a list of agenda items of such urgent priorities decides, "No, we have to create a world where art is possible, where something beyond survival is possible." That becomes so important. You know most of these communities, one reason they're so isolated, one reason for the segregation, is so many of these communities are so hard put just to survive. That just for basic survival they're dependent on an infrastructure which they lean on and which, of course, functions miraculously and beautifully. It's one of the most moving things is, is you feel a real African-American community. You feel a real Cambodian community. But, of course, the price is also that they're isolated from participating in the larger life of the city.

Studs Terkel You know, it's something you said a moment ago about these black churches. Three-hundred thousand or more for something they know is not bread, literally. They know it's not milk, literally. You know, it's not--it is art. And that the recognition that, that song or dance is important as the other.

Peter Sellars And we, you know, and I, and I said to a couple of the leaders of that community, you know, that the '93 festival I hope will be on Africa and the Middle East and, you know, for '90, for the '90 festival it's really concentrated on the Pacific and there are fewer, you know, black performers there. They said, We don't care. We want to be counted. We want to be present. We want to be here. We're not just paying for our things. You know, we want to enter.

Studs Terkel And you said, what is main--what is mainstream? Or main line? When that board member said, "It doesn't have quality," uh, when he speaks of the non-European theater I mean he's not part of the mainstream, and I suppose, here I am. This is in the grasslands of inner Mongolia about nine years ago, ten years ago. Looking for a barefoot doctor way up on the [hill?]. Sleep in a yurt.

Peter Sellars Of course.

Studs Terkel And there is a gathering of herdsman there and it's a celebration of the guests--whomever they want--the guests there. And we call upon song, I have my little tape recorder there. And isn't this mainstream? I heard her start singing a song. It's a lot--first she sang a sad song of her a billion of peasants 200 years ago. Finishes that, and they're talking and they're laughing in Mongolian some talk Chinese and then, How about another? and then singing the sort of a love song, but it's a graceful one. Suppose we hear the singing. We just finished some meal, and it--the herdsmen of inner Mongolia, way, way, way up there.

[music. singing in Mongolian]

Studs Terkel Now thinking, there was--who was mainstream? Who wasn't? I came from what obviously to them is an exotic and strange sight. They don't [have anything strange?] that we get to discover what it is to be mainstream outside our own.

Peter Sellars Yeah, I mean and I think, and I think really that's, that's really one of the keys. I mean, what's so--what's going to be so interesting about this festival is you know we don't get to see much foreign film in America. We see you know a couple of French films a year or maybe German film or a Japanese film squeaks through. But, you know, when was the last time you saw a film from Thailand? When was the last time you saw a film from Taiwan? Well it turns out that the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival this year was given to a Taiwanese director. Now, who knew that one of the world's great directors was living and working in Taiwan? We'll of course show a range of this man's films, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. I mean, it's really, it's an exciting period where it's not just the usual suspects. [laughter] Where, where right now, you know, maybe some type of cultural democracy might be in the offing.

Studs Terkel Now perhaps you--know--about Peter Sellars. We know now about this festival and it seems, obviously, it's a challenge. It's a great one too and very provocable but of course sad, but Sellars doing opera!

Peter Sellars [laughter.]

Studs Terkel Now, you've done theater, but opera has become pretty much one of your primary--because I thought the word opera means, what, 'big work,' doesn't it?

Peter Sellars Yes.

Studs Terkel Translation: big work.

Peter Sellars I, I love opera because it's, it is automatically profound. It's automatically metaphysical. It's automatically not just this sort of dumb kitchen sink realism. It automatically means a level of reality that is on the level of reality where, where you feel human beings project themselves through space, and, and, you know the act of opening up and throwing your voice out is, you know, the ultimate act of, you know, leaping outside yourself. That's, it's so moving.

Studs Terkel But, also you know for years here in United States, Italy [handled?] opera--we thought it was for the elite, something of an archaic form too. And along you come and say, "Wait a minute. It's very contemporary." So, when you make those changes it's not for shock reasons.

Peter Sellars Well no, it's actually quite the contrary. I would just like people to feel that opera can be normal, that opera isn't about strange people that lived, you know, long ago. It truly is, was intended by its composer as, you know, something that's directly accessible to the public. And, so I just try and create a set of images that allow an opera--allow, you know, people who haven't been reading up on their 13th century, you know, costume histories lately. You know, a chance to just walk into a theater one night and say, "Oh I get this. Oh sure. Right. I know who this is." You know? That's all. I just want people to relax. I want people to be able to just meet the characters and meet the music head on and not have to go through endless filters and, you know, try and, you know, sitting there thumbing through reference works in their minds to figure out what's going on.

Studs Terkel So when you do that with three Mozart operas--the three most celebrated--"Don Giovanni," "Marriage of Figaro," and "Cosi fan tutte." Now, each one of those three was a wholly different--

Peter Sellars Yes, And I'm happy to say we just taped them in Vienna and they will be released by Decca on video, video discs and, and home video next year and they'll be shown on PBS and so people can finally get to see them.

Studs Terkel Let's take them one at a time. "Don Giovanni" is where, now this is in Spain.

Peter Sellars It is sort of Spanish Harlem.

Studs Terkel Spanish Harlem!

Peter Sellars Could be the Bronx, could be, could be the Bronx, could be Queens. I just wanted a very intense urban setting where you were dealing drugs, violence. And, and a need, you know, a society that basically is escapist and prefers a drug. Prefers the fantasy to the real thing because the real thing is unbearable, they think. And that sense of pornography of, you know, of Don Giovanni for whom you know, each woman is there to be used for one night. You know, that, and that notion that, you know, the important thing is the number is that, you know, this is number 3,798. That sort of invention of pornography as a, as a way of covering up a horrible emptiness, as a way of compensating for a wasted life. Is to treat other people's objects. I wanted to get that, that setting that sense of wasted lives in, in the big cities where very, very important major lives are wasted. The one thing that makes this production a little controversial all is of course I really do deal with eternal damnation at the end.

Studs Terkel [laughter]

Peter Sellars You know, I mean it's something that you know doesn't come up that often, I suppose, but let's face it, you know, that's what Mozart's after.

Studs Terkel [speaking Italian?] What is that, there?

Peter Sellars Well, I mean, in, in this production it was a little shocking to people that Don Giovanni's last supper was from McDonald's. You know, and that it was a quick burger and a Coke. But I don't think it's more glamorous than that. It's not a function of glamor. It's a function of--