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Michael Langham, the Guthrie's artistic director, wears the infinitely patient, sensibly ascetic look of an English missionary in a foreign country. At 50, he is a veteran member of a famous order: the British directors-in-exile (D.I.E.) The son of a Calcutta jute merchant, Langham was born in Somerset and began acting under an assumed name while a law student at the University of London. He spent most of World War II in a German prison camp, then came home to begin a repertory directing career in the Midlands. From Belgium to Australia, from Stratford on Avon to Stratford, Canada, he has preached and practiced one mission: repertory theater, the gospel of the Old Vic.
In August 1970, Langham's pilgrimage brought him to Minneapolis, where seven years before the ranking saint of D.I.E., the late Tyrone Guthrie, had founded his theater. By the time Langham arrived, the Guthrie seemed to have fallen under its own curse. Its 1,437-seat house was playing to only 60% capacity, and the best acting was reserved for backstage feuds.
Part of the job of playing a British D.I.E. is knowing how to charm the natives. "You have to court a community like a lover," Langham explains. The wooing has paid off. In a little over six months, $600,000 was raised from local contributors to settle the 1970 deficit (the Ford Foundation has just added a grant of $618,000). Langham directed a production of Cyrano de Bergerac (also in a Burgess version) in 1971 that set a box-office record, and attendance last year went from the alltime low of 1970 to an alltime high.
Langham has become one British D.I.E. who can maintain the repertory ideal in style: a 40-member company; five productions in repertory at a time; a ten-week rehearsal period; even a full-time fencing coach, every repertory director's dream.
In January, Langham is presenting a musical version of Cyrano, starring Christopher Plummer, which is destined for Broadway in the spring. But the man who declined to become the first director of Lincoln Center's company back in 1964 will return to Guthrie's promised land.
Eyes bright with repertory evangelism, Langham confesses: "When I first came here, I thought Guthrie's selection of Minneapolis extremely bizarre. Now I realize that in a kind of monotonous way, Tony was absolutely right. I think it's very doubtful that any important American theater company can be developed, for instance, in New York. One needs the luxury of a gardener: time for growth. To a New York audience, the only question is: 'Is it a hit or a flop?' But give Oedipus to a Minneapolis audience and they're willing to experience a classic just like a new play. This allows a director and actors freedom—even the freedom, now and then, not quite to succeed."
*The Sphinx's riddle: What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? The answer—and the biggest riddle of all—is of course Man.