Interview with Peter Pennekamp, Humboldt Area Foundation

By Mark McKenna

Mark McKenna: So you have a long history with Dell’Arte?

Peter Pennekamp: It goes back quite a ways. I lived in Humboldt County when they first came here. I think I went to their first summer festival, where they took over the College of the Redwoods Junior College, 1972 or something like that. Then in the early 1980s, both Joan Schirle and I were on several California Arts Council panels together. At that point, we had started Center Arts at Humboldt State University. On a flight down, she was talking about how bizarre it was that they would do these performances and tour them around, but never perform them here because they couldn’t get access to a stage. They didn’t have the performance space developed at Dell’Arte. They had the building but virtually no place to perform. Well, we had to fight with the university for every single date except for at the beginning of the year, so I said, "Why don’t you be the opener of the season?"

So, that sort of started the relationship, probably in ’81, which happened as long as I was there. I went away for a few years, went back to Washington, and then came back. The board here was worried that they were hiring this arts guy. Was I only going to... The biggest grant I think we had ever given was $50,000. The first grant for $100,000 that was ever given was to Dell’Arte, a leadership gift for developing [Dell’Arte’s] building. Directly after that, the [Dell’Arte] students erected a 12-foot phallus downtown. I had some of the board members coming to me saying, "Uhhhh, Peter is this alright?" Of course it is all right. They are students.

I’ve stayed really close with them because they are my people and I love what they do. In terms of what they have done for the community, they have done two things that I think are pretty unusual. They have raised the standard of performance. I think we have many nationally and internationally known visual artists. But in performance, it is really hard to sustain really great work in a community this size. We have six repertory theaters. Tons of stuff going on. I mean you could see plays from brand-new productions of work that has never been seen before to old standards. It is harder to see Neil Simon than it is to see things that are more risky. The North Coast is a real progressive environment. There is a lot going on, but it stops at a certain level. What Dell’Arte does is bring in this professional company and really push the limits. All these incredible people coming in and out and working in the community. The art has improved dramatically. Not only because of their training, but simply by their presence.

Now they have done something on the opposite end: Because they see themselves as of the community and because they do all this original work, they’ve also delved into the heart of all the most controversial issues in the area and turned them into the material of their plays. Some of their work really got into the local stuff in a very powerful way. At times they’ve nailed it so profoundly on the head. "The Road Not Taken" did that, but "Korbel One" was the most powerful, in part because it is the decline of the paternalism of timber. The characters are modeled after characters in the community. They let it be known who they were modeled after. At the time, the chair of the County Board of Supervisors was Julie Fulkerson, who is on the board of Dell’Arte, a socialist from Arcata. And the opposite extreme – Anna Sparks, who is a proud redneck, ultra-conservative. The two of them got to be friends because they were both very honest people. Anna had a child who was very, very ill, and was struggling with what that meant inside her family. Julie [played] the mayor, and [Anna played] the redneck who was trying to keep her family together and keep defending timber. It got huge crowds. Anna and Julie actually did a fundraiser to support it, and they sang "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," and wrote their own words. Anna wouldn’t to see the play. She would raise money for it, but it was too close to what was happening to her. All the small town ... this percolates through the whole community. I don’t think anyone [had] actually articulated that the issue of timber decline wasn’t just jobs, but a whole notion of being taken care of by an industry. That was the first time that had been raised. It was raised through drama in ways that were very emotional for people and went right to local politics. Very powerful stuff.

There were two plays that they had written, one about a horrible incident. The Hmong [Cambodian immigrant] came here in the early ’90s in pretty large numbers, no advance warning. They had no idea what to do in the community. The community wasn’t prepared for them. They were about 10 percent of Eureka almost over night. And gang violence happened almost at the very same time, partly related. They were people who had all come from different communities to get away from that and partly it came with them. It set it up for more prejudice in this area than I have seen. There was this flash of terror. Three kids were killed in Humboldt County. Suddenly there are gangs and Crips and Bloods, communities changing. One Sunday morning a Hmong family was preparing a pig for ritual slaughter to help the spirit of a child that had died, something they have to do. Washing the pig, the pig starts squealing and the neighbors think they are doing some awful thing to the pig. Suddenly there is this whole thing about no animal slaughter downtown. It was all just racism, just under the surface. City Council got involved. The police chief came out of the woodwork and said, "These are just good hill people, I come from Appalachia and these are decent people. Everybody needs to simmer down." He played this wonderful role. And everyone loved Arnie, and it worked. People thought, "Oh, he thinks it is okay." Then everyone got embarrassed and figured out what was really happening. The City Council apologized. And actually it was a turning point. It allowed people to get past their fears. Dell’Arte actually wrote this play with them about it. Then they did one that was American Indian, one of the stories from up river. And so, the two blended, from the oldest to the newest, with the audience participating in the sense that when they came [to the performance], they would intersect. So, there was this evolution of culture.

We did excerpts of that for Dennis Collins, president of the Irvine Foundation, who said, "We are looking at theater companies from all over the country, and it seems like almost none of them are engaged in their communities. Why here?" And Donald Forrest looked out the window and said, "How could it not be?" And then they all talked about how they moved here to be part of the community. That is why they moved here. That is why they continue to be here, despite all the job offers out there that can offer a whole lot more. It’s a way of life. You can’t be in a community and make that kind of commitment and not be responsive, too – which also gets to the issue of people staying in one place and not staying in one place. What Dell’Arte has is the continuity. They really know the community they are in.

MM: You talked about how the level of art was raised. When do you think that the community realized that?

PP: That again was an evolution. It was after [Dell’Arte founder] Carlo [Mazzone-Clementi] got out of the company. There is always that issue of the great artist who inspires the art, that in fact can’t see past it. Not only that, but he was such a son-of-a-bitch. He almost got run out of town the first time the Grand Comedy Festival happened. It is surprising he could walk down the street and not have people throw things at him. He literally would do everything he could to antagonize people, and just purposeful, it was sort of a part of his art. And it meant the businesses that supported it all end up feeling totally screwed. A lot of students felt pilloried. Probably one of the best things that ever happened is when he left at the end of the Grand Comedy Festival. Dell’Arte got the building, and you had the three core people with very different backgrounds, but collectively possessing probably not quite the level of artistry, but a level of leadership and insight that Carlo never had. That was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t think it could have survived if he had stayed.

So he left ... and some of those early plays they were doing .. "Loon’s Rage," which was about nuclear power, and probably still is one of my favorites, immediately allied them with a lot of environmental, progressive folks in the county. They already had that, but I think it took that a step farther. It was one of the first pieces that people really saw up here. "The Road Not Taken" was the one that just nailed it. I’ll give you a sense of how powerful it was.

It was about this effort to build a road from Gaskey up north of Crescent City to the Hupa reservation, to take timber out of the sacred lands. Finally, it went all the way to the Supreme Court. They lost in the Supreme Court, but by the time they lost, the Forest Service decided that it was time to back off, so the road was never built. They sort of lost and won. But the play is about a Native person in the valley. There are wonderful Dell’Arte characters as the bad guys, the bad guys are the timber companies and the Forest Service. And the character who is trying to help this person who is just being screwed out in the valley is the environmentalist. Then there is this shadowy person behind the scenes. The mystery.

Opening night was a benefit for the North Coast Environmental Center. The day before, I got a call from one of the top members of the California Arts Council (who had money in the play), whose husband was a law partner of [Gov.] George Deukmejian – these are really conservative folks – saying she was going to be in town and wanted to see the play. So I reserved seats for them. I can’t imagine a worse mix of timing to be there. So, we went out to dinner in advance, and the dinner was totally screwed up. Every male in the place had long hair. This is a real Humboldt County, back-to-the-land kind of place. Mobbed. I walked up to Tim McKay who is the head of the North Coast Environmental Center, and said. "Tim, I hate to ask this, but I’ve got a couple of folks that report to Dell’Arte’s funding. Would you mind releasing your seats and I’ll get you seats later?" They are standing right there, and Tim says, "You mean those fucking Deukmejian appointees?" In a really loud voice. So he and his girlfriend move. And the play is just a fabulous production. A fabulous production. There are some pretty bawdy parts, Joan getting it on with a guy in the bathroom. All through this, I am wondering how they are reacting. In the end, the mystery, the person in the background, is the environmentalist, who has joined the Forest Service and become another person who doesn’t give a shit about the local people. The history – that is, in fact, how it is. The environmentalists who are not the local environmentalists, some of them have tended to get involved in the anti-blue-collar sentiment – the same things the timber industry does.

So, in the end it was a very powerful thing. And it is done, and the whole place is sort of silent. All the environmentalists are there, and it sinks in what the message is, all about ethics and what you stand for. By the way, the Environmental Center is still mad at Dell’Arte for that production, and that was probably ’82 or ’83, which shows how deep that runs. So George and Pat are walking out. George is still a little upset over some of the bawdy parts. Pat says, "If I lived here I would oppose that road. I would work against it." Bingo. Talk about what art can do. You want any testimony to the power of art, here it is. Again, a way for people to engage beyond the surface chatter and get at what this means to humanity and actually, to the environment. That play changed the way I look at the environmental movement, and the work I do is different because of it. In very direct ways.

MM: How do you see their work really changing action?

PP: That is always a hard thing to document. Things like "Korbel One," the fact that you had the two extremes in the politics in the county participating in it, but also building an alliance they hadn’t had before that. That those issues got to be a part of public discourse meant that the way people saw the timber industry changed. Before I moved here was "Redwood Summer," when people were chaining themselves to trees. The whole area was actually sometimes crossed in violence over the timber issues. People were putting nails in trees so that when loggers were cutting, their chains would break. People were badly injured, and when it came down to it, they were protective of the people who lived here. That totally polarized things. Within about two years the timber industry had fallen off their perch. Totally different reactions. People saying that they had always known that we were fouling our nest, and that it is time that we took better care of things. Pacific Lumber was going so extreme that almost everyone abandoned any hope of supporting them. One of the big timber companies got so nasty that to this day some of the people that hate them most are conservative Republicans in Eureka. I think they feel betrayed by them. They were the model, that paternalistic model. So, the art and what was happening in the community coincided in a way that public perception changed. Now, how you determine what part of that ... All I can say is that before Dell’Arte did "Korbel One," that wasn’t even being discussed. So what is the power of the concept? It is huge in the public mind, but it is hard to track.

I can talk about myself and the "Road Not Taken." I just said that it effects my behavior directly. I don’t know if you know abut the Headwaters Forest? Headwaters Forest was the biggest timber battle in America for about three years. Woody Harrelson chained himself to the Golden Gate Bridge. Huge full-page ads in the New York Times. All sorts of international press. About 3,600 acres of old-growth redwood about 12 miles from here that Earth First and their friends decided to turn into the next environmental movement. It was very calculated. Julia Butterfly went up into this old-growth redwood she named Luna and didn’t come down for two years. It was in the news all over the world. All that was happening 12 miles from here. So, we got asked to participate in the negotiations. Because of "The Road Not Taken," and I mean literally because of that, I said not unless the negotiations happen here. Not unless the people who are effected on all sides are allowed to participate in that solution. Otherwise you are ripping them off. You say you believe in community, but it is the type of act of disrespect that leaves people powerless in the exact way that the person in the valley is left powerless in the play – everyone manipulating and being paternalistic.

A lot of their work is about paternalism. That just occurred to me. It is interesting. But it was such a clear notion of what paternalism does and why it is always bad, even if you think you are on the right side. When you follow paternalism from any side, no matter how self-righteous you are, it becomes implicitly anti-blue collar. It takes poor people and working people and makes them the enemy. They are the ones that always get caught in the squeeze. That entire cosmology I took from that play, and just put it into practice over and over and over again. Because of my position here, I have some real power. There are now meetings happening in San Francisco, and the person who started the Save the Bay movement, and is now working on the big effort to protect the upper Rio Grande River, has been a part of all these discussions. If we can’t link policy to the stewards, you end up with both environmental chaos and tremendous amounts of damage to the people who are living there. All that comes almost directly from a Dell’Arte play.

MM: What would happen if Dell’Arte wasn’t in Blue Lake? I wonder a lot about the art form of Commedia Dell’Arte and then you’ve got your community members that are the real working class – that mix.

PP: Well, in Humboldt County those mix in funny ways. All the people who come here with the back-to-the-land movement, or come here for college and stay here, end up working in the mills. So, you’ve got all these mill workers with master’s degrees. When I was working at Center Arts, we got really notorious because we would do Carol Armitage and we would get 80 percent of the audience here that she would get in San Francisco. Consistently, we would draw a bigger crowd bringing in Mabou Mines than we could doing a Shakespeare production. We’ve gotten known as one of the more experimental places. It is a very different culture. I think the sort of art Dell’Arte does could be appealing in a lot of different communities. The "Theater of Place" would be different in different places. It would be different in Arcata. Thank God they went to Blue Lake. Arcata is way too precious. There is a much greater reality to Blue Lake. Blue Lake really is still an old mill town. It is much about unemployed mill workers.

We had Grantmakers in the Arts, a national affinity group of foundations, come up here and do a conference – the whole crowd in Humboldt County. One night, we went out to Dell’Arte. Dell’Arte had closed the street in front, and the whole town got involved. There were 20 accordion players in windows of top stories as you went into town. There was a big ceremonial salmon barbecue, which became more ceremonial the more six packs got drunk. The whole town was out. The fire chief kept wanting to know what he could do to help. Everyone wanted to help and be a part of it. There was a parade of kids that came through in Dell’Arte clown costumes. Then some of their stilt figures coming through town. Then there was this whole acrobatic thing. It was a community event. Having these foundation [representatives] here was a community event. And it was Indians, loggers and artists, fire chiefs. I had people telling me afterwards that it was life-transforming being there.

When they first moved here, they couldn’t have done that. People were suspicious. There are some very funny stories. Like there was this guy across the street who, their second year, they had an anniversary of their first year, and this guy who was a real redneck had this flat across on the second floor. He always had this Dixie flag, which is rare in Humboldt County. So, six in the morning, he turns on country music full blast. All the people from Year One are out camping in that field. "Wake up, you hippies!" So, 25 years later, they are having this reunion. Six in the morning, everybody is asleep out there, and on comes this country music from the window. "Wake up, you....uhhh, wake up you...you...puppet makers." They knew they had made it.

At first, the city was so hostile. When they moved there, the timber industry was still intact. Everyone was still working in the mills. Timber in 1965 was 90 percent of employment on the North Coast. Now it is seven. So, people went from the ethos of working for a corporation to being a very poor abandoned town. Dell’Arte moved here during the back-to-the-land movement when the town was mostly rednecks. The back-to-the-landers were very threatening. We had communes all over, it was a very tense moment. When timber ended, a lot of people left. Things changed. Dell’Arte went from representing the enemy to representing hope. Very powerful stuff. One of the first years they had a whole group of Scandinavian women students. One day Bobbie Ricca comes running in and says, "Michael, you’ve gotta do something about it, you’ve just gotta fix it. Come on out." The building across the street was a dorm and these young women were sunbathing nude out on the roof. Every log truck within 50 miles was in town.

This town of hardcore conservative loggers, and all of a sudden, every time you turn around, there is somebody going by on a unicycle in a clown costume. The town was transformed, and so were the people. So Blue Lake is an entirely different place now than it was then, in ways that would be unthinkable without Dell’Arte. So, that is another way to think about impact. In the whole evolution of the town, the two major economic development plans all hinge around Dell’Arte – the development of the Mad River Festival and attracting all that sort of stuff into town and making that what makes the town distinctive at the end of timber. All because of Dell’Arte. See, they would have been lost in Arcata. In Arcata, they would have been just another liberal institution.

MM: I asked Michael and Joan what are the good habits of Dell’Arte. One of the first things she said was integrity. We really believe in it, and we have demonstrated it, and when we say we are going to do something, we do it. Years of people really knowing when they get involved that there is going to be some meat to it.

PP: People really trust them. And so, they can go do a presentation for the old men’s Rotary over in Eureka. People there know that they don’t agree with them politically on a lot of stuff, but they will give them a big ovation. They’re really glad they are there. They know they are a real asset to the community, which is why they can get away with the students erecting a 12-foot phallus downtown without it doing real damage. Some of that is because people are more progressive on the coast, but not everyone is progressive, and still there is no backlash. A lot of that has to do with how they are perceived.

MM: I wonder about the environment and just how much it is important. I am literally talking about the earth and not the culture.

PP: This is a community where the big issue is the environment. Here it is really big, but I think in other areas, other issues would play out just as well. I could see a company like this evolving in Boston having to do with issues of urban race. Have they talked about the history of the [San Francisco] Mime Troupe? Because, you know they started as a part of the Mime Troupe.

MM: Carlo did?

PP: And Michael. The three core people came out of San Francisco. There was a fight. Carlo felt like the Mime Troupe sacrificed art to politics. Carlo’s idea was focusing more on the art. I think what Michael and Joan and Donald have done is a sort of third thing, which is get at the roots of politics, as opposed to the Mime Troupe dealing with the most transparent politics. I think every community has the ability to get at the roots of politics if you do it with great integrity. I don’t think it is about the environment. It would look differently in different communities.

MM: Is there something about the common denominator of it that is tangible, the similar thing that the communities all have?

PP: It would probably be in the particulars. Like in Appalachia, try it with Appalshop. Appalshop is not in a progressive community. I think if you compare them to Dell’Arte you get a totally different mix. People tend to lump them together because they are rural, professional and well known. I think the structures that make them work – in Appalachia it was the progressive collapse of mining. Highlander Center came out of pretty fundamentalist beliefs, and created a base for exploration that gave room for art. But in very conservative communities where there are always a lot of tensions, where if people don’t hear their voice accurately portrayed, they will turn against you real fast. Dudley [Cocke, of Roadside Theater in Appalachia] once said, "I’ve spent my whole life to free these mine-working communities, who then go on to become horrible racists and oppress other people." It has got to be in context of the people you are working with. What they can do there is because of the level of oppression that the miner workers and the community experiences. The art provides a voice where there isn’t a voice. From a white perspective it is about race. From the neighborhood perspective it is about people having a voice that gives them some power to influence their world in a better way. No different. That is why it is powerful in Blue Lake. That is why Dell’Arte would have been incredibly less effective in Arcata.

MM: Then there is a class thing, too. How many wealthy people are in the community, where are they in Humboldt County?

PP: Well, they don’t attend Dell’Arte’s productions. Wealth here is a funny thing. There are still some timber fortunes around. Then there are professionals, a lot of doctors, people who aren’t fabulously wealthy, but who are doing quite well. Some of those people do attend things like Dell’Arte or Center Arts and become sort of a backbone for the vanguard as season-ticket holders. We get weird California money people here. They move here and make money on Microsoft. We tend not to have the big guys. We tend to have people who make a couple million bucks and realize they can move up here, have a nice house and a great quality of life.

MM: So you don’t have this status dynamic of the upper class?

PP: We do and we don’t. We have people that play that role, but who don’t have much money. People who do the social dance. The people here who are well-to-do by-and-large don’t participate. They live here to be left alone. One guy in Arcata donated a million dollars out of his pocket. He supports environmental projects, and is the biggest donor to Planned Parenthood in the last 20 years. One of those old-time Republican progressives. If I mentioned his name and he found out, I would be in trouble. We’ve got a donor in Ferndale who sits down with me every year and asks me to look into certain things. He lives on $6,000 a year, lives in an apartment and writes a $300,000 check, supports environmental stuff and makes sure that there is always enough food for poor people. I don’t think anyone knows that he has got any money. That is typical. The big money up here is very invisible. All we need is enough money up here to make sure your kids aren’t anemic. There is still a lot of poverty.

MM: What potential is there for Dell’Arte? What would your dream be?

PP: I’m not a good person to ask that. I don’t believe in institutions. I think Dell’Arte is the people in the building. Whenever they are gone, for whatever reason, I think it becomes a different institution. What happens next, I don’t know, and in a funny way, I don’t care. I believe in life spans. Whatever happens next might have the same name, but might be a different thing.

MM: Joan talked about transmission, and how that is very important to her right now.

PP: Well, in the Indian community it is highly effective. but that is because "community" means something. It isn’t a place you happen to live. Maybe it is because of mobility. What Michael and Joan and Donald have done is said, "We are going to plant ourselves here and spend the bulk of our creative lives making this work." Where does that happen? Liz Lerman’s dance company – is it Liz Lerman’s when Liz is no longer there? Outside the Indian community – the real sort of transmission where tradition not only can be held, but can grow and flourish from generation to generation as people thoroughly understand what their elders have done and then, working with them, identify the next stages – that is almost impossible. So, I think about it not as individual institutions, but the whole field of activity bringing new people into the field so there is some continuity. The notion of art is a legitimate and powerful community principle. It has got to transcend individual institutions, because that is how white society works –- or this society, sort of European odds-and-ends society that we are all a part of whether we are white or black or Latino.

MM: But where is the power there? And I think about Joan again. There is this fierce standing up against the whole way our culture works. It is so poisonous...

PP: You can’t stand up against it. In a funny way, you’ve got to stand up for what you believe in. In the late ’60s, when the AIM [America Indian] movement started, was the first time they stopped standing up against something and started standing up for themselves. The generation that did that are now the elders. It is an amazing thing. Bernice Johnson Reagon talks a lot about that – where power resides is actually not in resistance. There are things you have to resist, but that isn’t where the power exists. Two conferences of cultural centers of color were held in New York around ’89. People were just beaten down, mostly in their 50s. The second day, Bernice stands up and just starts talking. She says, "Do you remember when you were young, and the first time you looked around and saw that there was injustice around you? You thought that if you saw it, you could change it," and the whole room starts nodding. She says, "Then some years go by, and you meet some friends like you. You start working together and you are full of hope and excitement. A couple more years go by, and nothing has changed. You thought that if you could see it, you could change it, ’cause if you could see it, everyone could see it. And because it was unjust, of course it would change. So, you get into your 20s and you start becoming a little militant." She just sort of keeps walking through. She says, "Then you get to be our age and you start feeling defeated." And at this point, she’s got the whole room in her hand. People have rolled their eyeballs back and are just all caught inside. "You know what was wrong with the way we approached it? We went out to do battle everyday to win, rather than because it was the right way to lead a life." Whoa. The place woke up. Woke up like it had come out of a trance. The next two days were balls of fire. I think that is what the Indians have done. They have repositioned. Dell’Arte has repositioned the work. I think others have repositioned the work.. The reason it can work is because the very notions underpinning it are different. It is not about adaptation. It is a whole different standpoint. One that is affirming.

Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation.

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