A standing ovation prevents Gordon from beginning her remarks at her retirement celebration.
Joanne Gordon landed at CSU Long Beach in 1989, and ever since then—particularly under her leadership during the last decade—the university’s Theatre Department has become an artistic powerhouse, featuring an undergraduate program that outclasses what you’ll find on most college campuses, as well as a graduate program that fuels a first-rate theatre company, California Repertory.
Gordon, who steps down as department chair at the end of this semester, was recently feted by students and colleagues past and present. We caught up with her a week before the lively shindig (the “bash the bitch” roast gives you some indication that Dr. Gordon is exactly the most button-down of dons) to discuss her career and more.
As we began, I explained that if Gordon (JG) caught me (GM) messing with my computer while we talked it was to adjust audio levels or make notes, not instant-messaging. This led into a shared diatribe against people texting while in face-to-face conversation with someone else, which led her to share an anecdote that gives a glimpse into her fiery personality, especially when it comes to the theatre.
Hundreds turned out to fete Gordon for her quarter-century at CSULB.
JG: I had a sad thing happen in rehearsal. I’m very sensitive to the actors, who are giving and spilling their guts. And then somebody pulls out this…device. I’m really upset, so I walk across to her and I go, (Growling:) “If you don’t be here, just leave!” She said, (Mewling:) “I was told to take times so we could time the quick changes. I was just writing down the time.” (Laughs)
GM: So, you’re retiring. Why?
JG: Why? A number of reasons. I’ve actually been in the CSU system for 30 years, which is a very long time. And I actually decided three years ago—which takes me to 10 years as chair and artistic director—that I would much rather leave having established a transition in a very calm and humane way…. I want things to go forward well. And my daughters, bless them, have given me four grandchildren in three years. It’s kind of interesting, this whole thing with [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg and this whole “lean forward”/female-empowerment movement that’s at the moment so important. Because I’m a strong woman and the mother of strong women. For my generation—I’m 65, no secret; proud of it!—I know the sacrifices my children had to make for me to be in a leadership position. They were definitely the sacrificial victims, and they suffered for it. As my one kid put it when she was 6 years old: “Sometimes I just wish I had a real mommy rather than a theatre mommy.” Talk about turning the knife! So I’m ready to give back to them in a way that I can support them with their children while they’re very small. Because I’d left South Africa, so I didn’t have a mother around to help me. I’m ready to do that kind of nurturing. [Plus,] I think it’s good for the department, I think it’s good for me. Because of this wonderful program they have at [CSULB], I’m not completely disappearing. I’ll be part-time, so I’ll be able to go on directing and teaching, which are my two real loves. I did this stuff [i.e., serving as chair] in order to do the other. So now I can just do the other and let somebody else worry about it.
GM: Mm. So “retirement”—
JG: —is a relative term, yeah. (Laughs)
GM: Part of the reason I asked the question is because…You mentioned that you’re 65. But, of course, 65 ain’t what it used to be.
JG: (Overlapping) —is the new 45! I know! (Laughs) […] I still have both parents alive, which is extraordinary. And my father, at 91, still goes to work at 7 [a.m.] and comes home at 6 at night. He’s still fully engaged. And my mother is still actively engaged in adult education. I don’t know how much more adult she can be; she’ll be 89 next week. The whole notion of being engaged is terribly important. And I don’t intend to stop. I just want to stop with the part of it that’s really the slog, which is dealing with bureaucrats, dealing with budgets, dealing with all the necessary things that one needs make art but are really adjacent to both education and art.
GM: Which of your works are you most proud of?
JG: B.S. was really the culmination, because it really was the fusion of the two things I’m really known for in terms of my whole artistic trajectory, if you like. I started working with Charles Bukowski’s poetry in the ’80s, while he was still alive. I’ve done four different pieces based on his work, and each one has been extraordinarily meaningful. And I’ve been deeply engaged with his widow, Linda, and his daughter Marina. And Hank said when he was alive that of all the people who dramatized his work either in film or theatre, I was closest to what he wanted. Which intrigued him, he said, “because you know, most women hate me.” And I went, “No, Hank, you love women.” Of course he did—he was just terrified of them.
GM: “Hank”—I didn’t know that’s what he went by.
JG: Yeah. You always know whether people knew him or didn’t know him if they called him “Chuck” or “Charles.” He actually has a poem where he mocks people who call him “Chuck.” He was Henry Charles Bukowski—that’s why “Hank.” [Anyway,] the Bukowski work is deeply and profoundly an expression of who I am as an artist—in a weird way, because he’s seen really as a misogynist, which I didn’t believe. For me he was a deeply flawed, passionate, hurting, incredible artist. So there was this kind of grimy, in-your-face kind of guy with his work. And then on the other hand there’s [Stephen] Sondheim, who’s the epitome of elegance and wit and sophistication. My fascination with Sondheim started when I was still in South Africa as a kid, when I suddenly realized that the artform I adored, which was kind of puerile, could have that form, but with a much more sophisticated subject matter. I did my Ph.D. thesis on Sondheim, which was published as a book; I’ve [staged] many of his works here; and then I’ve taught workshops on Sondheim in Germany, in France, in England. So putting [Bukowski and Sondheim] together was the culmination of a dream. If I’m going to trace the steps I took along the way, it’s always been associated with one or the other of those artists. My first show I did here after arriving from South Africa was Sweeney Todd in 19— (She hums instead of supplying the year), and it won the American College Theatre Festival and went to Washington, [which was] kind of a wonderful introduction to working with educational theatre.
GM: Obviously CSULB has been a place where you were able to flourish. Did you immediately know it could be that, that you were home?
JG: I always knew I was home with the students; there was never any doubt. […] I think the CSU student as an entity is always what’s appealed to me. They are working-class kids. Many of them are first generation [in their respective families] at university. Some of them have to lie to their parents about what their major is, because theatre is not a pragmatic choice. So I’m working with a group of people for whom when I light the fire, the fire burns brightly and importantly. So, the biggest attraction has always been the students. The move from Cal State L.A. [where Gordon taught for six years] to here was to find a more compatible aesthetic environment. Which I did find. The bureaucratic structures are always going to be both necessary and a huge challenge—and so they were here. But I never had any doubt in terms of the student body. […] The longer I’ve spent here—and, frankly, over the last 10 years I’ve been able to shape the vision and the aesthetic of this department—the more home it’s become.
GM: Why is Cal Rep so good?
JM: I honestly believe at its core is an aesthetic imperative that has been supported by my three longest colleagues here: [lighting designer] David Jacques, [scenic designer] Danila Korogodsky, and [costume designer] Nancy Jo Smith. They’ve all been here 15+ years, and all three of them were committed to a very specific aesthetic. We’re going the same road, which makes life so much easier; and that’s the road of poetic truth. We were joking about it the other day. I said, ‘If I wake up in hell, hell for me would be a bad box set, [the kind] where you slam the door and the flats shake, and the windows are painted on.” You’ll never see that kind of set or those kinds of costumes or anything like that in any of the stuff we do here. And that’s taken a long, long road of education. Because when I arrived here they were making box sets with painted wallpaper and painted grass and on and on. […] None of [the four of] us are the least bit interested in what I consider a 19th-century aesthetic of realism. We all look for the poetics, not only in the material we choose, but in the way we develop the material and the way we teach our students. That’s why, in terms of both design and acting, when students come in here, I’m very clear: “If you want to go to a place that’s doing the traditional repertoire in a museum-theatre kind of way, don’t come to us, because you’ll be miserable.” Now whether that will continue after me, I don’t know.
GM: For the foreseeable future, what are your personal ambitions theatrically?
JG: Honestly, to be supportive of my department and my colleagues, to not be seen as someone who’s trying to lead from behind. I really want to give up the reins and be supportive, to contribute my passion and my talent where it’s needed, and to step away when I’m not. And that’s not going to be easy. I understand that. Temperamentally, for somebody who’s led an organization for a long, long time…But luckily, I have two glorious grandchildren here in Long Beach, and so I can use a lot of my passion just being the grandma that I wasn’t as a mama.
GM: So you’re not going to be like Putin.
JG: Richelieu was more my image, but exactly. I really don’t want to be the gray eminence, I really don’t. I want to teach with joy, I want to direct with joy, but I don’t want to lead.
GM: Are there any plays that you especially have your eye on to direct?
JG: Well, I’m so thrilled that the play I will be doing next year with Cal Rep (I don’t think we can announce it yet. We can say it’s a Tony Award-winning musical) has been one that before I die I wanted to direct—and I’m getting to do it now. I’m totally thrilled.
GM: In your career, what have you most enjoyed—
JG: Whatever I’m doing at the moment. (Laughs) At the moment I’m deep into Spring Awakening with the kids, and I’m having such a ball. I think you’ve got to fall in love. It’s like asking who’s your favorite child: whoever’s with you at the moment. […] I love the undergraduates so much! Talk about forgetting that I’m 65. I run around like I’m a kid, and I laugh and I joke and I play with them…. They keep me young.
GM: What percentage of Cal Rep’s audience is students?
JG: I’d say 80%.
GM: That high?
JG: Yes. And [that’s] good and bad. I look at the demographic of young, very ethnically diverse kids in [the audience at] our shows, and I go, “Most theatres would give their right arm to have that demographic.” At the same time I’m saddened that the Long Beach community still doesn’t know what a gem it has in our work.
Never reticent, Gordon had plenty to say about Long Beach—both the city and the City—in relation to the arts. But that is a conversation for another time. Look for it here later this month.