IT TAKES A LUNATIC

US, 2019, 126 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Billy Lyons.

The title comes from a quotation about the subject of this very interesting and enjoyable documentary, Wynn Handman. He was not exactly a lunatic – but, the enterprises he took on showed creative genius and artistic risk.

This is essential viewing for anyone interested in American theatre and, especially, New York theatre and Wynn Handman’s acting school.

Wynn Handman is not necessarily a household name even for those interested in theatre. This documentary was made when he was 97 years old, born in 1922. There is biographical information given about him and his family, his relationship with his father (and a clash with him which meant that he did not speak with him before he died). The clash was to do with military service and his physical situation but Handman joined the Coast Guard and, during World War II, was in the Navy.

The film has a very interesting device, a class by Handman talking about his own discovery of inner self, communication, acting and performance, illustrating it by his Navy experiences which are also visualised.

He set up The American Place Theatre in New York City, in existence for 40 years, audiences coming by subscription rather than tickets and a venue for all kinds of experimental theatre and opportunities for those he trained to get performance experience.

There are a great number of scenes of Handman giving classes, the small theatrette room, many close-ups of him giving advice.

While he taught and coached many actors over the decades, a number of them reached prominence with him or on the cinema screen or television. There are comments by such actors as Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, Chris Cooper, Joel Grey, Michael Douglas, Lauren Graham. There are sequences of plays performed especially with Frank Langella, and a number of playwrights including poet Robert Lowell, a number of African- American experimental writers, Tibor George and his play Cannibals which was hugely successful in Germany, an examination of the German conscience in the light of World War II. He encouraged Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi to venture out in one-man performances.

The narrative goes back to Handman’s applications to go to theatre school, going out on his own, and his own assistant who set up the Women’s Project for theatre.

And, he was still giving four classes a week at the age of 97.

An excellent tribute to him and an introduction to American theatre, off-Broadway.