MoviesWill Geers' Theatricum Botanicum, the idyllic setting of the four-day California festival, began life as a refuge for actors who were persecuted in the name of anti-communismThe audience arriving for the opening night of the 8th Topanga film festival at the Theatricum Botanicum are greeted by a veritable wooded wonderland. Think Sundance in the Shire, with drinks in front of the Hamlet Hut, a dusty brook and musicians strumming acoustic guitars under giant oak trees.
A trio of belly dancers perform on the wooden stage of the majestic open-air auditorium before the first night screening of Kyle Ruddick's One Day on Earth, while the half moon throws out a glowing silvery light.
"It's beautiful here, just perfect," says festival director Urs Baur, to a cheering crowd, who in deference to the festival's wolf logo, collectively howl at the moon.
The Theatricum Botanicum, nestled deep in Topanga canyon, which sits east of Malibu, in the Santa Monica mountains, is a Pandora for actors. But the lush campus, which includes Woody Guthrie's tiny wooden cabin (his home for part of the Fifties), belies a painful inception.
Actor Ellen Geer, the theatre's artistic director, was only 10 years old when her actor father, Will Geer, best known for his role as Grandpa Zeb Walton in The Waltons television series, was hounded out of Hollywood for refusing to testify at the investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), in New York, in 1951.
Her mother, the actor and activist Herta Ware (best known for her role as Rosie Lefkowitz in Cocoon), found the land which they purchased for $10,000, and it soon became a refuge for a community of blacklisted actors, including Virginia Farmer, Anne Revere, Jeff Corey and John Randolph, who had nowhere else to go or perform.
Will Geer, an enthusiastic botanist, had earlier graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in horticulture before heading to Broadway. Theatricum Botanicum means theatre of plants, and the actor made it his mission to grow every plant mentioned in a Shakespeare play. (Figus carica; "O excellent! I love long life better than figs." Charmian, Anthony and Cleopatra, says one inscription in a flower bed). Ellen and siblings were taught the plants' Latin names, but while this seems charming, Walton-esque even, the hearings cast a pall over the family that tore them apart, and took almost 20 years to heal.
"Pop had been big on Broadway but he came to Hollywood and made a lot of money working as a supporting actor," explains Ellen, who is currently appearing in the theatre's production of The Women of Lockerbie.
"We lived in a big fancy house in Santa Monica, and went to big fancy schools. He was huge and extraordinary ... I can say that even though he was my dad. Then one day there was a knock on the door, he was handed a pick slip, and everything changed."
Will Geer was well known for his liberal views and activism. He supported workers' rights and the unions, and his wife, Herta, grew up surrounded by politics; her grandmother was Ella Reeve Bloor, a founding member of the Social Democracy of America in 1897, which later became the Social Democratic Party. HUAC viewed this link as conclusive proof of Geer's communist tendencies.
The family decided to travel to the hearings in New York together. "Mother said, 'You're not going to court alone.' So they bought a trailer and drove across country," says Ellen. "We turned it into a beautiful trip that none of us will ever forget. There were a lot of campfires, a lot of talking about life. When mother and Pop went to the hearings, Pop was wonderful. He said, 'This is the biggest turkey I've ever been in'."
Unlike some of his peers, Geer refused to testify. "He wasn't a rat," says Ellen. "Many of his friends were rats, and they did it to escape what was happening. But Papa always said, 'You have to understand that when people are put in a situation like that, they don't how they're going to react'."
Back in Hollywood, acting work quickly dried up but it wasn't just her parents who struggled; Ellen and her siblings also faced ostracism. "People can be very mean. It was a terrible scene for the kids. We were chased after, and called, 'Red Diaper Babies'."
Will Geer become disheartened, and while he worked on the land, which at that time had no running water or electricity, growing fruit and vegetables (their only income), his wife decided to leave, taking the children with her.
"It was the wild west here and I'm not joking. We had mountain lions, fires and floods, but it was beautiful,' says Ellen, of the fledgling artists' colony. "We went to school in bare feet, it wasn't hippy, it was living with nature. Mum got us through it but when Pop collapsed she knew she had to take us away. He was 50, and he stopped as a man. He just stayed in the garden and we saw him lose his heart. It was so hard on him. Ultimately, it broke up my parents' marriage."
Eventually, Geer got a call from Broadway, and left Topanga to earn a living on the east coast. In the meantime, Herta and the children moved around all over the country. "We went to 14 different schools and lived in trailer parks."
Like her parents Ellen decided to become an actor, but the tide only began to turn for the splintered family in 1972 when Will Geer got a call from the producer of the Waltons. One by one the family returned to Topanga, to live together once more, and the following year the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, a non-profit corporation, was founded. To this day, audiences noodle their way up the canyon to watch performances of Shakespeare in the open air.
Will Geer may have been wronged but he wasn't a bitter man, and some of the old wounds healed. "Papa lost friends but got them back. Jimmy Stewart was very right wing but in the end he hired me in his one and only TV series under the auspices that I would never talk politics. After seven or eight episodes he also hired Pop, and it was beautiful to me to see them hug."
After Geer's death in 1978, the family decided to continue his work, and alongside the theatrical performances they now also run educational workshops for children.
A statue of Will Geer sits in a shady memorial garden on the land, his ashes nearby. "And mother is buried under the sycamore tree," says Ellen, who has also directed this season's run of Measure for Measure.
Topanga may only be a 40-minute drive from the centre of Hollywood but it's light years away in sensibility. There's nothing flashy here. Just nature and the stars. "We've been hoping to work with the Theatricum to hold our event here for years now," said Urs, who founded the four-day festival with his wife Sara. They've now partnered with John Fitzgerald, who co-founded Slamdance, and now runs CineCause, a philanthropic platform, connecting socially relevant films, and celebrities to related causes. "Seeing the Theatricum filled to the gills, buzzing with a sense of anticipation, surrounded by a sea of familiar and new faces, and being able to kick off with a film created by local filmmakers, has been a truly rewarding experience," said Urs. "It really feels like the festival has found its place in this community."
Will Geer would no doubt have appreciated the inclusive sentiments of this new wave of artists.
"What happened to him was a very shocking," says Ellen. "He was a true humanitarian. A people person."
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