One of the first things David Esbjornson did when he became artistic
director of the Seattle Rep was decline to give an interview with
The Stranger. “He is still in the process of learning about
Seattle,” a Rep publicist said by way of polite refusal back in late
2005.
It appears Esbjornson never fully succeeded in decoding the
city. Last week, the Rep announced that he would leave in 2009, as
soon as his first contract expires. (Four years is a relatively short
tenure:
Bart Sher took the helm at Intiman in 2000. And Daniel
Sullivan was artistic director at the Rep for 18 years.)
Esbjornson has declined to say where or why he is going. I asked
board president Marty Taucher whether Esbjornson was leaving because of
problems with budgets, programming, staff, or community relations.
“All of those,” he replied.
Among Esbjornson’s achievements: being the first to maximize the
Rep’s available space, programming full seasons in the secondary Leo K
Theatre; and being quick to identify young local talent. He
entrusted the Rep’s production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie (a
one-woman play so controversial it was scheduled in, then kicked out
of, New York) to excellent local artists: director Braden Abraham,
actor Marya Sea Kaminski, and designer Jennifer Zeyl. The bet paid off
with a successful show and an extended run. It’s hard to imagine
another major artistic director who’d hand over the car keys so
willingly—and have the judgment to know which artists to hand
them to.
But Esbjornson’s season programming reflected his background as a
freelancer; it didn’t cohere, but instead lurched from bold gambles
like Rachel Corrie and Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio to
vapid pap like Tuesdays with Morrie and Back Home Again: A
John Denver Holiday Concert. During Esbjornson’s reign, the Rep
has tried to be all things to all people. Taucher said Esbjornson
has “pushed us to be more ambitious,” but that newer and sometimes
undercooked productions, like The Breach, “have not achieved
a lot of resonance in this market.” (According to the Rep,
subscription sales are expected to fall 6 percent over the course of
this season.)
Those mixed results must be frustrating for a guy who had such a
successful career as a freelancer. Esbjornson directed the first
production of Angels in America (in 1991, at the
Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco) and was a favorite director of
Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, and Dorfman. He probably wanted some of
what Bart Sher was having across the street at Intiman: a stable
base from which to fly off to work at Lincoln Center and the Met Opera,
and to get, you know, Tony nominations. Which must have been doubly
frustrating.
But every exit is an entrance someplace else. Next year,
Orphans, starring Al Pacino, will open on Broadway. Its
director: David Esbjornson. 
