Like A Good Friend Who Has Died, The Bathhouse Will Leave A Legacy

In the early 1970s, a small stone bathing house perched on the edge of Green Lake was transformed by the city and local theater artists into a popular neighborhood playhouse.

But just a few weeks ago, after a long and hearty run, the Bathhouse Theatre locked tight its doors and filed for bankruptcy protection.

Arne Zaslove, the theatrical dynamo who headed the Bathhouse for the past 18 years, is currently mounting a campaign to reorganize and revive the company.

We won't know for a while whether Zaslove can marshal the considerable resources needed to regenerate the Bathhouse.

In the meantime, an elegy for the warmly regarded "old" Bathhouse Theatre, and an acknowledgement of what it contributed to the overall Seattle theater scene, is in order.

In its earliest days as a theater, the Bathhouse was a Seattle park facility, funded by municipal monies.

"It wasn't an Equity (union) house, but it did very high-quality shows," says local director M. Burke Walker. "A lot of people worked there - I directed `Loot,' `Room Service' and `Voice of the Turtle.' "

In 1980, the city got out of the producing business and a vital ensemble called the Floating Theatre Company took over the venue.

The troupe's members included an inspired University of Washington drama professor, Arne Zaslove; his producer-wife, the late Mary-Claire Burke; and gifted actors Marjorie Nelson and John Aylward.

And under Zaslove's guidance the Bathhouse became, recalls

Walker, "a fabulous place for young actors to get a kind of classical training they couldn't get elsewhere in town."

For audiences, the Bathhouse served as a welcoming North End theater haven, where one could catch full-scale Shakespeare, other classics and modern works, at popular prices and with easy parking.

But Aylward remembers it as a laboratory where he could stretch and refine his craft.

"Arne was a tremendous influence on me as an actor," says Aylward, who later appeared at many other Seattle theaters, and is currently a regular on TV's "E.R."

"He's a wonderful, wonderful director, with a great sense of the physicality of theater. And he was choosing plays no other theaters in town were doing at the time. For actors to do those big, juicy classical roles was a real turn-on."

Highlights of Aylward's Bathhouse days included lead stints in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Juno and the Paycock" and "Rip Van Winkle."

But Zaslove and company established a unique niche with two other kinds of fare: "concept" Shakespeare productions, re-set in various eras, and an annual musical-comedy homage to radio, "The Big Broadcast."

Jeff Steitzer, former head of A Contemporary Theatre, recalls "Arne's wonderful 1984 production of `Twelfth Night,' set in the Gatsby era, with music by George Gershwin and Cole Porter. It was an astonishing conceit that worked really well."

And Aylward has a special fondness for a "Macbeth" set in the Old West, and "an infamous production of `Midsummer Night's Dream' with a '50s, rock 'n' roll high school theme. It was the best version of that show I've ever been in, or seen."

Dozens of expert actors appeared at the Bathhouse: Lori Larsen, G. Valmont Thomas, Allan Galli and Frank Carrado, to name a few. Says Larsen, "It was great - like working in a clubhouse, with some of the wisest Seattle people in the audience."

Working alongside Zaslove for a decade was the dedicated and respected Burke, praised by Seattle Repertory Theatre's Kurt Beattie as "a person with brilliant producing instincts," and by former Bathhouse manager Steve Lerian as "the heart and soul of the theater."

When Burke died in 1990 of cancer, the Bathhouse's future looked uncertain. The company had long struggled to meet its expenses in a tiny space limited to 180 patrons per night.

Zaslove's maverick, artistically driven, sometimes chaotic operation had not attracted the solid underpinning of corporate and foundation support that kept other Seattle theaters solvent. And an ambitious Shakespeare festival in 1986 at A Contemporary Theatre saddled the company with a hefty debt it never paid off.

Zaslove separated from Burke in the late '80s, and began a new commuting life as a teacher at University of British Columbia. But he returned to Seattle full time in 1990 to take charge of the Bathhouse again.

He pulled together the same kind of eclectic seasons Bathhouse patrons had come to expect: a little Shakespeare or Moliere, an American classic or two, some daring and offbeat recent works, and at least one musical - be it "The Big Broadcast" or "The Fantasticks."

But by the early 1990s, Seattle's cultural landscape was packed with new theater companies competing for funding, actors and audiences.

And though a loyal following kept coming, the Bathhouse never regained the excitement and cachet of its 1980s heyday. This month, after last-ditch efforts to chip away at its deficit, the Bathhouse trustees closed the theater.

"I'm very, very sad about it," says Aylward. "Where are the young actors going to work? I hope a miracle can happen and Arne can revive the Bathhouse, because the community needs it. They won't know what they're missing until it's gone."

Others, including Walker, take a more philosophical view of the company's demise: "It's like when a friend of your's dies. It's not supposed to happen, but it does - to all of us. Theaters don't live forever. But the good ones leave a legacy behind, and so will the Bathhouse."