Actors Gang

TIM ROBBINS took his antiwar message to the stage Aug. 18 with a reading of "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine," benefiting the Actors' Gang and Office of the Americas, a nonprofit group that promotes peace and international justice. Sharon Stone and Jeremy Piven slipped into their seats at the Kirk Douglas Theater for the sold-out show, where 1. Neil Patrick Harris showed off his theater chops alongside the big-name cast. After a standing ovation, 2.

How to turn Shakespeare's goriest play into a family romp? The Actors' Gang approach: Throw in rubber chickens, water balloons and clowns. Shakespeare's vengeful epic "Titus Andronicus" is truly nasty, with mass murder, mutilation, cannibalism and blood galore.

The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, has all but faded into the bloodless abstraction of a diplomatic bargaining chip in U.S.-Libyan relations. With "The Women of Lockerbie," the Actors' Gang recaptures the emotional weight of that watershed terrorist attack through the visceral immediacy of first-rate live performance.

THE one thing people always say about Simon Abkarian is that there's something in the way he moves. When the noted French Armenian actor starred in Sally Potter's 2005 film in verse, "Yes," movie critic Karen Durbin exulted in his physical presence, calling it "a visual feast." Now Abkarian is bringing some of his loose-limbed elegance to the Actors' Gang new home in Culver City, where he's directing a production of "Love's Labor's Lost," which opens Saturday.

The words "timelier than ever" have wreathed George Orwell's "1984" since its publication in 1949, but could there be anything more Orwellian than the current "war on terrorism"? This unenviable backdrop of ours, with its daily headlines registering the curtailment of civil liberties for indeterminate national security imperatives, sharpens the urgency of the Actors' Gang staging of "1984," which opened Saturday at the Ivy Substation under the direction of company artistic director Tim Robbins.

The Actors' Gang is the front-runner in the race to become the resident company at the Ivy Substation, a coveted 99-seat venue operated by the Culver City Redevelopment Agency. The agency's review panel is recommending the Gang, and the agency's board will meet Monday evening to consider final approval. The two-year contract would begin on July 1. The Gang was selected from a field of 14 applicants.

The Actors' Gang is considering a move. The pugnacious theater company's Santa Monica Boulevard digs in Hollywood were sold last fall, and the new owner, Jack Khorsandi, wants to charge a rent the troupe can't afford, according to its managing director, Greg Reiner. Negotiations with Khorsandi were continuing last week. The Gang's lease ends June 30.

"The Actors' Gang storms London," declared Keythe Farley, one of the co-writers of "Bat Boy," an Actors' Gang-developed musical about a half- human mutant that will open in the West End on Sept. 8. Also in September, the Hollywood-based Gang hopes to mount a London production of "Embedded," Tim Robbins' barbed look at the Iraq war and its media coverage. "Bat Boy" began with a 1997 production in the Gang's smaller Hollywood space, where the budget was about $12,000 and the seats numbered 41.

Tim Robbins' question at the end of "The Best Defense" [by Richard Stayton, Nov. 16] begs to be answered. In response to the personal attacks on him and his longtime partner, Susan Sarandon, by the right wing, he asks, "And why, if they have all that power, and if they got it legitimately, then why be so concerned by what a couple of actors say?" The key word here is "legitimately." The Bush administration stole the election, and deep down they know it. They are paranoid, and therefore proceed with defensive fear and confrontation as their policy.