Quotes of the Day

Great musicians know that the rooms where they play have personalities — bright or dull or warm or clear. Great actors say the same thing about the theaters where they work. And when Kevin Spacey explains why he just became artistic director of London's Old Vic theater — and why he wants to rescue the splendid old place from the ravages of time — he talks about its acoustic character. "There are some theaters where an actor's voice goes out into a void," he says. "You can't feel where it's going, and therefore can't control how the performance is modulated. You learn to manipulate and modify your voice — its energy and rhythm, its highs and lows and vocal quality — so the actual acoustical place you're in can either help or hurt you. Well, at the Vic, it's definitely on your side."

Laurence Olivier called it the Old Vic's "sweet spot" — a place Spacey situates somewhere "downstage center," where an actor can most easily make that crucial connection with the audience. "What is unique about the Old Vic is that you know you've got them. You can feel it. And when it's silent, it's silent." Except, that is, when mobile phones start ringing, as happened once too often during a performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh at the Old Vic in 1998. "It was at a particularly inappropriate, quiet moment," Spacey says. "I looked up — you don't usually want to do this, but it had been building up for weeks — and said as loudly as I had said anything on stage: 'Tell them we're busy,' for which we got applause. But then you heard the rustling of everyone trying to make sure their phones were turned off."

Spacey first set foot in the Old Vic as a child growing up in California's San Fernando Valley, during one of the periodic trips to London his theater-loving parents took with their three children. "I was so young I don't remember specific productions as much as I remember the spectacle of it and the pageantry of it and how it was such an amazing and beautiful theater," he says. The experience helped turn Spacey into a self-described "theater rat," and one of his priorities at the Old Vic will be to encourage attendance among young people. Iceman's acclaimed 1998 run, in both New York and London, featured subsidized student tickets that included some of the choicest seats in the house. "When you have a youthful, eager, excited audience in the front row, you infect the entire room with a kind of energy, and it also affects the actors," says Spacey. During Iceman — his first appearance onstage at the Old Vic — Spacey was asked to sit on the board of the theater, which had recently changed ownership. "I suspect they were reacting in part to the fact that we had lines around the block for Iceman and suddenly the theater was packed," says Spacey, acknowledging that his movie- star status and two Academy Awards help draw crowds to the theater.

I remember how the Old Vic was such an amazing and beautiful theater — KEVIN SPACEY

Spacey's newest film, The Life of David Gale, co-starring Kate Winslet, premiered last week at the Berlin Film Festival. After a string of critical and commercial successes culminating in American Beauty (1999), the critical reception for his last few movies was mixed; Gale, which deals with the death penalty in the U.S., is getting positive buzz. "I've always believed good politics makes bad theater," says Spacey. "I wanted to do it because of [director Alan] Parker. Whenever he has a social injustice or political issue at the center of a film, he manages to make that stuff hide and make the film about people and emotions, so the politics becomes almost subversive. And maybe in a drama, people will walk out of a movie like this and just start talking about the issue."

Spacey prefers theater to films "handsdown" and concedes that there have been movie roles he'd rather forget, but refuses to get into specifics. "Sometimes, even if I don't like something, audiences might," he says. "There's no reason that I should take away their experience just because it wasn't mine, so I try never to be dismissive of work that I've done or the people I've worked with."

Spacey also won't divulge any details of what he has in mind for the Old Vic. The theater has foundered since its glory days of the '30s, '50s and '60s, when its resident repertory company provided an artistic base for luminaries like Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Maggie Smith. Although the Old Vic has continued to attract top performers, it hasn't housed its own company since 1998 and has lacked a unifying creative vision. Its walls are decaying from damp and it needs a new roof — which means that if London's famously inclement weather sets in, some members of the Old Vic audience are as likely to experience an indoor drizzle as a memorable performance. Spacey will be looking to the Labour government to pitch in with funds that it has previously denied the theater. As ever, he chooses his words carefully, and his message is straightforward: "We're putting together a company, we have an artistic director, we have a vision. Now help us fix the roof."

• AISHA LABI
• Actor Kevin Spacey takes center stage in his new role at London's Old Vic