ENTER, STAGE LEFT ROBBINS RETURNS TO ROOTS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

As circumstances have so eerily proven, Tim Robbins couldn't have selected a more appropriate theatrical double bill with which to herald his return to the Actors' Gang, the Hollywood-based theater company he founded 20 years ago.

Both Anton Chekhov's ``The Seagull'' and ``Mephisto,'' Arianne Mnouchkine's adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel (which became an Oscar-winning film starring Klaus Maria Brandauer), raise issues about the act of artistic creation and the people who participate in the creative process. The theatrical performers in ``Mephisto'' are putting on plays in Facist Germany.

Talk about art born out of difficult times ...

Is it enough?

``They both pose very important questions about what it means to be an actor. Is it enough to just be an actor? That's the central question of 'Mephisto,' '' says Robbins, who is directing ``Mephisto.'' ``Where is it just a vocation and where is it moral responsibility?''

The West Covina-born actor and director has never been solely a performer or an artist and has a strong sense of moral and social responsibility. The only reason ``Mephisto'' hasn't yet opened is because he halted rehearsals following the Sept. 11 attacks, driving to New York the next day. While the company continued work on ``The Seagull,'' its newly reinstalled artistic director was cooking food for relief workers, working at the World Trade Center site and even organizing the donation of thousands of boots for people whose footwear was shredded while they were sifting through the rubble.

``I needed to get back,'' says Robbins, who lives in New York with actress Susan Sarandon and their three children. ``I've been talking to a lot of the firemen who live down there. It's a profound sorrow and a profound anger and it's very difficult to get around the magnitude of what happened.

``Everyone is going to have to deal with this for a long time, especially those kids in New York who were walking home from school in the midst of chaos and fear and screaming and sobbing.''

Is it enough, then, for an actor today to just be an actor?

``A month ago, I might have said I don't believe every actor is obliged to be involved socially in the world. I don't know if I would give you the same answer today,'' he says, ``But then, is it enough to be only a baker? Is it enough to be only a carpenter? In prosperity and in peace, maybe there's one answer; maybe there's another answer now.''

Sitting in the empty auditorium of the Santa Monica Boulevard Actors' Gang, the soft-spoken Robbins - nursing a cold - gives long, thought-out answers, raising his voice to talk over the periodic sound of an electric saw buzzing away in the lobby. For its 20th anniversary, the Gang has undergone an artistic shake-up, culminating in Robbins being reinstated as the company's leader after a four-year absence. The theater itself is undergoing $25,000 worth of facility renovations, according to new managing director Veronica Brady.

The ambitious season-opening productions include a return of noted Theatre de Soleil director Georges Bigot, whose 1984 workshops during the Olympic Arts Festival influenced both Robbins and, ultimately, the Gang. Bigot, who conducted a new set of workshops earlier this year, is directing ``The Seagull,'' which opened last week.

``Mephisto'' rehearsals continue with an eye toward a Nov. 3 opening, the second delay the production has experienced. Robbins said he considered canceling the production altogether, but took comfort in the fact that ``The Seagull'' could move forward while he was away. ``I've never started anything and not finished it,'' he says. ``We're going to do it. It's too important not to.''

Collective effort

Discussions with Robbins, Brady or longtime members of the Gang are inevitably peppered with terms like ``the style'' and ``the collective.'' The company was founded with Robbins and 10 acting students from UCLA. The emphasis then - and now, says Robbins - is on a kind of collective decision-making harmony. How long will the plays run? The company will decide. What's up next at the Actors' Gang? The company will decide, although Robbins expects the attacks to provide inspiration.

The company has made a name for itself with bold reinterpretations of the classics or new works that often were born out of group workshops. Most recently, ``Bat Boy: The Musical,'' produced at the Actors' Gang in 1997, went on to become an ofroadway hit earlier this year.

Interviewed a few days later, Ned Bellamy, another founding member, is groggy during a noon telephone interview. ``Mephisto'' rehearsals ran late the night before, he explains, and Bellamy - who plays the lead role of Hendrik Hoefgen - also spent part of the evening helping to paint the stage.

``No matter how old you get, no matter how many shows you do, it's the exact same thing we did before anybody knew Tim Robbins,'' says Bellamy. ``This theater is completely devoid of celebrity, which is one of the great things about it.''

Company can-do spirit notwithstanding, at the time of Robbins' return, the theater was in dire straits structurally and organizationally, says Robbins, to the point that many longtime Gang members were thinking about quitting.

``We were left with a collapsed organization and we have to rebuild it,'' he says. ``We have to clean; we have to paint. We have to fix the toilet that's leaking. That's the easy part. The people who had been running the group have been asking an audit for the past year and a half. It was never done because the records were so disorganized and in some cases not even there.''

Robbins has no complaints about his actors, especially in the way they've dived into Bigot and the workings of Chekhov.

``The most moving thing for me about this summer has been to see these people I've known for 20, 25 years go out on stage and risk everything, stripping naked, figuratively, putting aside what they know works,'' says Robbins, ``going to the core of the truth and revisiting this process we've been working in these past 18 years. You're not going to find a lot of actors that have that kind of courage.''

It is enough

Which leads back to ``Mephisto,'' and the actors who defied Hitler. Which leads, once again to the events of Sept. 11.

``This oppression of the Nazis on artists is easily imaginable,'' he says. ``Certainly, there's no art under the Taliban. There is no culture. There is no theater. This is the stone age. Some of the lines (from 'Mephisto') were resonating in pretty interesting ways.''

His ``Mephisto'' duties aside, Robbins is focusing on acting. He stars in the upcoming film ``Human Nature'' with Patricia Arquette and Robert Forster and has the Jonathan Demme-directed ``The Truth About Charlie'' due in 2002. An Oscar-nominated director himself for ``Dead Man Walking'' in 1996, Robbins says he doesn't plan to go behind the camera any time soon, since directing a film means giving up two years of his life.

``It's so all-encompassing,'' he says. ``I love it. It's incredibly fulfilling. it's something I will do again, but right now I want to just act.''

He is, he points out, an unofficial understudy for a couple of parts, meaning one sprained ankle or bout of laryngitis among the ``Seagull'' or ``Mephisto'' company and Tim Robbins might be on the Actors' Gang stage once again.

And you can bet he'd be hanging around to put away props after the show.

``He is so involved, so committed and constantly here,'' says Brady. ``He's a huge emotional and artistic presence and his commitment is beyond reproach.''

``THE SEAGULL''

Where: Actors' Gang, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 16. ``Mephisto'' joins the repertory beginning Nov. 3

Tickets: $15 to $20. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Recent events have given Tim Robbins a new perspective on acting: ``Where is it just a vocation and where is it moral responsibility?''

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(2) V.J. Foster and Susan Dailan rehearse for ``Mephisto,'' directed by Robbins.