Cinematic couple make cameo appearances here

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

One is a noted director of screen and stage (and an actor, when the role is right) known to '80s moviegoers as the André of "My Dinner With André."

Cindy Kleine and André Gregory are in Honolulu for workshops and screenings of their separate work in films. Cindy Klein

André Gregory and Cindy Kleine, husband and wife among other things, are in Honolulu next week for screenings and workshops at the the University of Hawai'i and the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

In a phone interview with The Advertiser last week, Gregory and Kleine said they were thrilled to return to the Islands for a fifth time together. They were married in Haiku, Maui, three years ago.

"We love the beach in front of the Kaimana Beach Hotel," Kleine said. "We love to swim, love the restaurants."

But it's their love of writing, directing and filmmaking in general — not to mention their friendship with photographer David Ulrich of UH's Pacific New Media program — that brings the couple to the Islands this time.

Gregory will be on hand for screenings of "My Dinner with André," his acclaimed film with Wallace Shawn, and "Vanya on 42nd Street," the film version of his theatrical staging of the complex Anton Chekov masterpiece "Uncle Vanya." He also will conduct a workshop on working with actors.

Kleine will hold a screening and discussion of her short documentary works, including "Doug & Mike, Mike & Doug" about a pair of identical twins, and "Til Death Do Us Part," a powerful, shocking piece examining her parent's 59-year marriage. Kleine also will lead a workshop on video production techniques.

Gracious and good-humored, Gregory and Kleine bring different creative energies to their marriage.

Gregory first gained notice as a daring theatrical director in the 1960s. In 1968, he founded the Manhattan Project, an experimental theater group that staged, among other things, "Our Late Night," Shawn's twist on "Alice in Wonderland."

But it was "My Dinner with Andrw" that left the deepest imprint on the cultural landscape. Directed by Louis Malle (who also directed "Vanya"), the film achieved, through carefully crafted dialogue and painstaking rehearsal with the two principals, something of a cinematic miracle — an actionless movie with more dramatic tension, humor and heart than a dozen summer blockbusters.

Gregory also has acted in "The Mosquito Coast," "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Bonfire of the Vanities."

Works in progress

If all that multitasking seems daunting, Gregory said it's just a natural extension of the way he likes to work.

"They're all in different stages, " he said. "So I'm not doing the same thing with each of them. I've been doing it this way for 30 years, and I really enjoy it."

Given the amount of time he likes to spend exploring the works he stages, it's simple pragmatism to work on more than one project at a time. He's already invested seven on-and-off years rehearsing "The Master Builder."

"I usually rehearse for one or two years, not the usual four to six weeks," he said. "In that way, I work more like a novelist or a sculptor. When you spend that much time rehearsing, you start to see what it is that people are afraid of. It's a process of going into the unknown.

"In the larger scale, plays like 'Vanya' or the Ibsen play took the playwrights years to write," he said. "If you rehearse them for just six weeks, you don't really do them justice. I try to preserve and respect the long, difficult work that the playwrights did."

Gregory also has been involved in the international peace movement, galvanized in the weeks and months leading up to U.S. military action in Iraq. The director said he was inspired in part by his involvement in a Shawn play called "Designated Mourner."

"That play was very political, and I think it caused me to be more radical than in the past," he said. "More passionate.

"Right now, Bush is the most dangerous threat to freedom and world peace," Gregory said. "I think the peace movement is now concentrating on getting Bush out of office."

Gregory's political activism may not be expressed overtly in his plays, but the same energy and sense of purpose infuse everything he does, he said. "I think everything we do is deeply personal."

That's certainly true of Kleine's work. Though not widely distributed, her short films have garnered critical praise for their creativity and clarity.

Scenes from a marriage

Kleine will hold a screening and discussion of her short documentary works, including "Doug & Mike, Mike & Doug," about twins. Cindy Klein

While the former views his 55-year marriage as a pleasant success, the latter tells of a life of frustration and regret that led to previously untold infidelity. The revelation is a surprise to both the filmmaker and the audience.

Part II of the film, titled "Ships That Pass in the Night," still in production, shows the couple reading from love letters sent during their courtship — an uncomfortable irony given what Part I has revealed. Part III was to have focused on the couple's life today, but plans changed when Kleine's father died two months ago.

"I've been shooting since the day he died," Kleine said. "My mother was sheltered her whole life. She lived with her parents until she was 24, then lived with my father for 59 years. When my father died, she couldn't even write a check. Part III is now about her new life."

Kleine said screenings of her film left many audience members disturbed, in part, she thinks, because the issues raised are reflective of their own lives. Still, Kleine said there was no personal fallout. Her mother, a natural in front of the camera, encouraged her to proceed.

Kleine refused to let the film be screened in New York, to protect her father.

"I showed him a portion of it," she said. "He thought it was funny."

Taking a cue from Gregory, Kleine is doing a bit of multitasking herself. In addition to working on the last two parts of "Til Death Do Us Part," she is also elbows-deep in a film project about "outsider artists," ordinary people from rural areas who have had a life-altering experience that they express artistically.

She also has adopted Gregory's love of creative collaboration.

"I used to work closed up alone in an edit bay, and then I'd come home and ... (Gregory) would be working with his actors, drinking tea and eating cupcakes," she said. "I used to think, that looks like fun."

Now working on a larger scale, Kleine collaborates closely with two editors and a camerawoman.

Gregory and Kleine share ideas and observations about each other's work, and Gregory has lent his writing skills to part of the outsider artists project, but the two have yet to collaborate formally on a shared project.

That could change soon. They already have a title for their embryonic film idea, "Be It Ever So Humble."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2461.