Vel & Reg in “Carmen”
at Hidden Valley circa 1978
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Vel & Reg in “Carmen” at Hidden Valley circa 1978 |
My two home dictionaries tell me that "camaraderie" means "Trust and friendship between people" or "Comradeship, good-fellowship." For Reg Huston, it carries more weight than those terse, dry definitions. It implies a kind of magic group cohesion that either happens or doesn't happen to members of a theatre company.
It's a word that kept surfacing in our conversation last month about his longtime relationship with Tevye in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, his two upcoming local theatre projects, and his views on the importance of human values in musical theatre. "We did FIDDLER first in `79 in Hidden Valley," he said - the "we" being Reg and his then future wife Velvali. "It was grueling! Six performances a week for three months. I was younger then.
 Reg & Vel FIDDLER - 2006 Forest Theater Guild photo by Stephanie Loftus |
"Since then I've done two FIDDLERs for Western Stage - 1999 and before that in 1984, and two for the Forest Theater Guild - one in the open air and the latest one at the State Theatre in Monterey.
"Tevye's the good person in every man, the guy everybody wants to be. He's flexible. He bends but won't break. I discovered when I was studying in Vienna that the `Bend But Don't Break' was that city's motto. Tevye is a man who can glide with everything that happens until it comes to a crossroads between his family and his faith. The daughter Chava leaves to marry a Russian and, yes, he reluctantly says ‘goodbye’ to her - but only after she has already gone. You're not sure exactly where he stands at the end. Sure, he wants the best for his daughter, but he's still so regretful. But you have to move on.
“All of us parents have come to that in one way or another. Playing the role, you just imagine what it would be like with your own children.”
He knows that there have been big differences between his first performance of Tevye back in 1979, still not married and having no children, and in 2006, married for more than 20 years and the father of two teen-aged sons. Marriage and raising sons Jesse, 18, and Max, 13, has made him more empathetic with Tevye and his daughters. "I surprise some people by saying that I've to always liked old people. They've experienced so much. How can you not learn from them?
"Preparing for FIDDLER I've talked to holocaust survivors, many of them rabbis. . . and had the chance to tour Auschwitz concentration camp. Which was just horrible. . .horrible.
"FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is one of those shows that helps the world be a better place. It's fun and at the same time extremely poignant. . . I hate theatrical fluff. There's so much of it nowadays. There are so many musicals, even operas, that don't really teach you anything."
FORUM -
The Western Stage |
Besides starring in Forest Theater productions of FIDDLER and ZORBA, Reg has performed with many of the local theaters including 19 different roles with the Hidden Valley Opera; productions of THE MIKADO and JOHNNY GUITAR with Pacific Repertory Theatre; and SWEENEY TODD, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and BIG RIVER with the Western Stage. The Western Stage will also have him singing lead roles in this season's KISS ME, KATE and SOUTH PACIFIC productions.
I asked about the Forest Theater Guild production of MY FAIR LADY playing May 24th through June 10th, which he directs as well as playing the role of Alfred Doolittle. What is there in MY FAIR LADY that makes the world a better place?
"It's all about class: the separation of people and the dignity of people regardless of class. Eliza grows tremendously. She starts out as someone who doesn't think she's worth anything - she says, `Garn, who'd marry me?' - and she becomes someone who not only prides herself on what she does, but asserts and grows enough spine to tell Higgins, `You can give me a black eye, but I will not be passed over!'
"Higgins has referred to her as a squashed cabbage leaf and a guttersnipe. But he comes to realize, we hope, that she does have that spark of divine life.
"All the people who are at Ascot have had their riches given to them. It's the working classes who are in tune with their own feelings. They really know who they are and what it is that makes life worth living. There's so much more of a camaraderie among those who are selling produce and flowers in Covent Garden than there is with the hoi polloi that built the place."
Reg has done Alfred Doolittle before, back in Hidden Valley and again with future wife, Velvali, who played Eliza. She's now voice coaching Lauren Creager, who'll play the role this summer.
Talking about Reg Huston's apprenticeship and training, I was struck by the way he has made key decisions that favored home and parenting over choices that would seem to lead to wide recognition as a singing star and actor. "People still say to me, `You should be doing this in New York. . . You should be working in Los Angeles.' . . . Why? I am going to sing and act in Carmel - or Gilroy or anywhere else - the same way I'd sing and act in New York - and if touring out of L.A. means being less of a good father, I'll go for the fathering every time."
Certainly he has done that.
When he had finished a Masters of Music at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, the Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel Valley was beginning to do opera. Reg had just played Leporello in DON GIOVANNI at UOP, so Randall Behr, who had was a fellow student at UOP and was now directing the opera at Hidden Valley, asked him to repeat the role. There followed an extended career, some of it leading summer seminars and other youth events at Hidden Valley, some of it in opera studies in Europe.
"Through Hidden Valley, I was accepted for master classes with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. She and I really hit it off, and she essentially invited me to participate in the Salzburg Mozarteum, which is the summer school that runs concurrently with the Mozart Festival there. We did a production of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO there. She was the vocal coach and Peter Ustinov was the director, and that was a phenomenal experience. One day, he apologized to us for having to be absent from the next rehearsal, but he explained it was because he had a meeting with Gorbachov. Ustinov has got to be one of the most gracious humanitarians ever."
All of this led to a two-year contract with the Hamburg Opera. Reg sang Figaro and played other smaller roles. "Then we got pregnant and that changed a lot of things," he recalled. Velvali, who had been studying voice in Munich with Elly Ameling and Walter Berry, joined Reg in Hamburg, where Jesse (these days a student at Pomona College) was born. "We wanted to raise him here instead of there, so we returned to California, and I ended up with Youth Music Monterey. I was in charge of programs for them for six years."
The commitment to family and to work with young people continues. In addition to the all-out effort on MY FAIR LADY, Reg Huston is also at work with Larry Welch on a production of LES MISERABLES featuring top singing and acting talent from local high schools. It is playing at the State Theatre April 26th through May 6th.
For Reg, it would seem, theatre only really works when the people involved make it work by working together to form relationships and values they'll take with them wherever they go. And it's not about ego, either. "A teacher at UOP said something I've never forgotten: `Nobody asked you to sing - and nobody's going to cry if you stop.'"
We hope Reg Huston doesn't.
