Crazy? Mr. Fishburne Begs to Differ : Laurence Fishburne is writing, directing, producing and acting in 'Riff Raff.' The movies can wait.

By Jan Breslauer

Nov. 13, 1994 12 AM PT

<i> Jan Breslauer is a Times staff writer</i>

Laurence Fishburne knows people may wonder what he’s up to.

“People have got to think I’m out of my mind to be going into a 99-seat house in the middle of L.A. to do a play,” says the actor who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Ike Turner in last year’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

“They must think I’m crazy. But you know what? That’s OK. I love what I do.”

With three movies coming out in 1995, Fishburne hardly needs--or would seem to have time for--a small theater gig. Yet he’s directing, producing and acting in his own first play, “Riff Raff,” opening Thursday at Hollywood’s Theatre Geo.

“Riff Raff” is also the first project for Fishburne’s new theater and film production company, Loa Productions. The actor is launching the venture in order to give himself more creative freedom and control.

“I started a production company for obvious reasons,” says the charismatic Fishburne, seated in a dimly lit bar in the Hollywood Athletic Club. “I’ve always had a lot of ideas, and I just wanted a chance to implement them.”

Fishburne, 33, also sees having an organizational structure as a way to grease the fast track toward hyphenate status. “I’m defining myself as an artist, saying this is where I’m coming from and this is what I want to do,” says the writer-director-performer. “It’s about being in this business long enough to realize that if I continue to be the hired gun, that’s all I’ll ever be.

“For some people that’s fine, and I can understand it, because what I’m doing is a lot of hard work,” Fishburne continues. “But I have always liked what I do, and I like to work hard at it. I know that in the long run it’s going to pay off big time--artistically, monetarily, spiritually and emotionally.”

Besides, Fishburne also sees the production company as a hedge against career decline. “I don’t want to be 45 years old and have been a hot actor when I was 33 and have people going, ‘Whatever happened to Fishburne?’ ” he says. “I’d rather be able to be a guy who has a property who can go to a studio or an independent and say, ‘Hey, do you want to make this movie?’ ”

F ishburne knows well how the industry works. He began acting at the age of 10, was cast in “Apocalypse Now” at 14, and has worked with many different directors. He has stepped in front of the cameras for his generation’s most heralded African American talents, including Spike Lee and John Singleton, and is particularly remembered for his performance as a struggling father in Singleton’s 1991 “Boyz N the Hood.”

Indeed, it’s partly the experience of working on predominantly African American projects--such as those with Lee and Singleton--that inspired Fishburne to create his own company.

In such a situation, there’s a cultural shorthand that facilitates the work. “Working for somebody like Spike is like being at my grandmother’s house,” says Fishburne. “Working for John the first go-around was the same way, a 95% black situation.”

“It’s the difference between eating at my grandmother’s house and your grandmother’s house,” Fishburne continues. “You come to my grandmother’s house, you know you’re going to have certain things to eat on the table. You’re going to be looking around like, ‘Am I doing this right?’ ”

There is a sense of belonging. “It was nice for a change, not to be one of only five people of color on the set,” Fishburne says of his first Singleton film. “There’s stuff that doesn’t have to be said. There’re jokes that we get just because. But that doesn’t mean we intentionally exclude anybody.”

Ultimately though, Fishburne thinks initiative is key. “Things (in the entertainment industry) are changing for each individual who goes about the business of creating change,” he says. “You can sit and deteriorate or you can try to muster some movement and creativity.”

And thanks to his own efforts, and those of others, there is progress. “I used to feel like the black guy,” says Fishburne. “I’ve gotten over it. I don’t worry about that anymore.”

Yet no matter how the film world treats him, Fishburne always feels at home in the theater. He has trod the boards in an array of Broadway, Off Broadway and regional productions over the years. He is closely associated with his work in August Wilson’s plays, including his portrayal of the ex-con Sterling Johnson in “Two Trains Running,” a Broadway role that earned Fishburne a 1992 Tony.

Consequently, it’s a medium to which the actor is happy to return. “Theater is church for actors,” Fishburne says. “This play (“Riff Raff”) is (like) where I started--in little black box theaters doing these little plays about little people who are inconsequential to the big picture.”

Yet he didn’t always get to play the roles he would have liked. “There’s a bunch of plays that I never got to do because I was either too young or too old for the parts, like ‘Slow Dance on the Killing Ground’ and ‘Dutchman,’ ” says Fishburne. “For ‘American Buffalo,’ I was the wrong color.”

That, in part, is the impetus behind “Riff Raff.” “I wrote one for myself,” says Fishburne. “I’m starting (Loa Productions) with a play because it came out of me first. I’ve always known that I was going to write someday. I’ve been writing since I was 14--my own dialogue at least--I just didn’t realize that I was writing when I was.”

Fishburne began writing “Riff Raff” when he was on location in Florida last summer, shooting “Just Cause” with Sean Connery. “I was writing in my journal and I started writing in two voices instead of one,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what to expect, since writing a play was something I’d never done.”

The process, says Fishburne, was actually “much easier” than he would have anticipated. He began putting pen to paper last July 22 and had a longhand first draft completed by his birthday on July 30.

Set in the present in an abandoned apartment building on New York’s Lower East Side, “Riff Raff” is a drama about three guys from Brooklyn who get trapped in the building together.

The tone isn’t light. “I don’t know if angry is the best word, but it’s got a lot of emotional stuff in it,” says Fishburne. “We find out who these guys are, why they’re there and who they are to each other.”

Fishburne’s first thought was to have “Riff Raff” produced in New York, but the one place he had in mind wasn’t interested. “I gave my script to George Wolfe at the Public Theater, and he said it wasn’t what he was looking for right now,” says the actor.

S o Fishburne decided to go ahead on his own. “I wasn’t going to wait for somebody to give me the money to put my own play up,” he says. “My play wants to go up tomorrow.”

And given his means, that was no problem. “I’ve been fortunate enough to make enough money where I can afford to put it together myself,” says Fishburne. “I figured I’d launch this myself because I don’t trust anybody else to launch my stuff.”

But, the actor is quick to note, the scale is modest. “I’m taking small bites here: a one-act play that’s an hour and a half long, three actors and a 99-seat theater,” he says. “Low overhead. Low everything. Nobody comes to L.A. to do theater, so I can do it small, find out what the problems are under a relatively low-pressure situation.”

If there are obstacles, they may exist only in the minds of the audience. “Obviously people are going to have expectations of me as an actor and a writer and that’s fine,” says Fishburne. “I’m not competing with anybody. I’m just a guy who’s got something in him who wants to say it. The reason to launch it in L.A. is because that’s where I’m at now.”

In the future, Fishburne sees himself writing more plays as well as developing film properties, both within Loa Productions and on the outside. Projects he currently has in the works include an option on David Henderson’s biography of the late Jimi Hendrix, and Fishburne’s own “Simple,” a screenplay based on the work of Langston Hughes.

And he will continue to act in the theater. “August Wilson wrote all these old men,” says Fishburne, “and I feel so much better now, because when I’m an old man, I’ll have something to do as an actor.”*

* “Riff Raff,” Theatre Geo, 1229 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood . Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m. Through Dec. 11. $20. (213) 466-1767.