Picture it

Douglas Lay, shown here with Robin Christ in The Theatre, Inc.'s Helen, knows a thing or two about acting in that other medium.

On June 10, 1979, Pacific Beach resident Mark Yavorsky followed his mother to a neighbor’s house and fatally stabbed her with a 3-foot antique saber. The neighborhood’s grief would intensify as some grisly parallels emerged: The 34-year-old Yavorsky, a very highly regarded local theater veteran and UCSD theater grad student, had been cast as Orestes in the school’s Electra, a Greek classic in which Orestes kills his mother to avenge his father’s death.

Yavorsky’s increasingly erratic behavior led to his dismissal from the role shortly before the killing, which he claimed he committed to protect his mother from a nuclear holocaust. He was eventually found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter by reason of insanity and was ordered into treatment at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County. He was in and out of custody following his release and died in 2003.

The story of the murder and a bizarre hostage situation is retold in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?, a Werner Herzog-Herbert Golder movie that’s made a few film-festival rounds and premiered in New York and L.A. last December. When it hits the other markets (including San Diego) next month, you might recognize landmarks in Coronado, Point Loma and, of course, P.B. But as Douglas Lay tells it, the real action took place Downtown, and the upshot’s planted a big fat feather in his scrappy little theater’s cap.

Lay is the founding artistic director of The Theatre, Inc., a decidedly Greek-intensive company that producer David Lynch sought out in late 2008 at the behest of co-writer Golder, an acquaintance of resident translator Marianne McDonald. The idea was to re-create Electra’s Yavorsky-anchored scenes for insertion into the film—from there, Lay, who’s directed 13 Greek classics, was cast as Orestes, recruiting several of his actors for smaller roles. Filming took place at The Theatre, located at 899 C St., and at Horton Plaza’s Lyceum.

“I’ve done a lot of film before,” Lay explained, “and it was something that used to make me go, ‘Oh, God, I’m glad I’m in the theater.’ But these people treated us like royalty. Every night, [director and co-writer Herzog] was, like, ‘You have to come watch the dailies and tell me if this scene is working.’ I’m, like, ‘Really? OK!’ Everybody was so passionate about getting everything right. And they were so down-to-earth and nice, which is rare.”

Rarer still is the American actor who’s mastered both media. For all their similarities, the live stage and the cinema present distinct performance challenges, and Lay knows what they involve.

“When you’re presenting a theater piece on film,” he said, “it’s a very interesting process. If you want the audience to look at Orestes’ face on film, you’re gonna make ’em, through close-ups. Onstage, I don’t have that luxury, because the audience is going to look everywhere. It’s hard to get the audience to focus on one space. That’s what makes the acting techniques so different.

“But the commonalities are there, too. People are still telling a story. And anything that opens Greek theater up to the world is a fabulous thing. It’s at the heart of the Western canon. To see two artists like David Lynch and Werner Herzog become so passionate about Greek theater was a beautiful thing to see.”   

It’s also understandable. The legendary Herzog, who’s directed some 40 films, cozies up to central figures with impossible dreams, maybe like the ancient Greek military men bent on conquering the universe. He also focuses on hapless people with obscure talents—and while truly great live theater is far from obsolete, truly great live performers are certainly the exception. In time, Mark Yavorsky might have joined that threadbare roster. With the help of a Downtown theater company, we can reflect forever on the extent of his potential and the local tragedy that claimed it.   

Write to marty@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.