Loose Lips

FOR PEET’S SAKE
There are easier ways of making one’s Broadway debut than in a role previously played by Elizabeth Ashley and Jane Fonda. But in taking the part of nervous newlywed Corie Bratter in the revival of Barefoot in the Park, Amanda Peet wasn’t looking for the easy way out.

“There’s a part of me that thinks I won’t be a proper actor until I learn to overcome my stage fright,” says Peet. “When I hear the sounds of the audience coming through the loudspeaker before the show, all of a sudden, I wish they’d all go home or that I had become a teacher or a lawyer. So being able to do a long run like this show is a gift, because you start to realize that the audience doesn’t matter; what does is when you feel you’re a person who is having a private moment that feels true. And then I really love it.”

Many aspects of the show appeal to Peet. “I think I relate to Corie’s fear of dullness, of not being bohemian or wild enough,” she says. “That’s really funny, but also really sweet.” There’s also the benefit of working with her old friend, director Scott Elliott, and castmates Patrick Wilson (who plays her husband Paul) and Jill Clayburgh (who plays her mother). “When we did the first reading of the show, Patrick and I had never met before,” Peet tells me, “but our chemistry was kind of immediate. I knew I wanted to do this show with him. And Jill is one of the greatest people in the world. Right now, we have this mother-daughter thing going offstage. She’s like my mom in a lot of ways, and I’m sure I’m like her daughter [actress Lily Rabe].”

While Peet earned mostly excellent reviews for her last stage outing, the Public Theater production of This Is How It Goes, she has learned the hard way not to read the newspapers: “I did a play about eight years ago and I read the review in the Times and it wasn’t very good. So, for the rest of the run, I tried to steer my performance in the direction of what they said — and I got completely derailed. Now, my friends and family have learned to keep their mouths shut, whether the reviews are good or bad. However, it’s taken my father 10 years not to call me the next day to tell me what the critics wrote.”

Peet has joined the cast of Aaron Sorkin‘s TV drama Studio 60, and she has a number of film roles on tap after Barefoot, but she might be tempted to return to Broadway if she were offered a part in one of next season’s most anticipated revivals. “I’d love to do A Chorus Line,” she says, “though I’m not sure what part I would play. It was the first Broadway show I remember seeing, and when they did the finale and came back on stage in those gold costumes, I just wanted to burst.”

STRAIGHT FROM THE HARTLEY
Sharing the travails of her unhappy childhood in her book Breaking the Silence was hard enough for Mariette Hartley. Reliving those days on stage in her solo show If You Get to Bethlehem, You’ve Gone Too Far has been even more difficult but also very rewarding. “The response has been deafening,” she says. “It’s not unusual to find people sobbing or just sitting there in stunned silence — and, believe me, this isn’t a journey I originally wanted to relive on stage.”

Hartley struggled to escape a family legacy of alcoholism and depression. As she relates in her show, she finally found some peace after connecting with former film star Dolores Hart, who is now a nun in Connecticut. The two had known each other briefly in Hollywood, and Hartley was set to co-star in Hart’s last film Come Fly With Me in 1963, but the young star had to pull out due to illness.

“I felt robbed, because I had already fallen in love with her,” says Hartley. “Now I understand the connection.” In fact, the title of her show’ references the directions she was given when driving out to visit Mother Dolores, as she is now known. Says Hartley, “What people don’t realize is that I’ve been trying to get to Bethlehem since I was four years old. By that, I mean I’ve been trying to attain perfection since I was kid. And it took me more than 40 years to learn that it wasn’t going to happen.”

Hartley credits director Don Eitner with helping her go forward with the project, even at its most nerve-wracking. It turns out the pair had a somewhat mystical connection: “In our first phone call, he really had no idea what my book was about. When I mentioned Dolores, he told me he had seriously dated her before she went into the convent.” Now the trio is planning a reunion on April 2, when Hart will attend a special performance. “She hasn’t been to Los Angeles for 44 years and cannot wait to see it,” says Hartley.

LA CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

Having bared his beautiful body on Broadway in The Rocky Horror Show, Off-Broadway in Love! Valour! Compassion!, and in the acclaimed Florida production of Take Me Out, Sebastian LaCause wasn’t completely surprised when the producers of the Emerging Artists Theatre’s Triple Threat Festival asked him to audition for the role of “Hot Guy” in the play Edenvile. “Actually,” he says, “they had me read for all three parts in the play. But I wanted to play the lead, Jules, even though I think they initially envisioned him as some mousy white guy.”

LaCause got his wish, and he’s happy playing a suddenly single man who’s forced to reconsider his concept of Mr. Right. “I felt very strongly that I knew who Jules is and what the play is about, which is learning to give up a certain degree of control in order to appreciate the present moment,” he says. “And it’s been great to work in the kind of environment where the actors are crucial to developing their characters. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”

While LaCause has delighted audience in many musicals, including last summer’s production of Pippin at the Bay Street Theatre, his focus now is on dramatic roles: “I’m really finding myself more attracted to the grittier, darker stuff, which doesn’t happy in too many musicals. That said, I’d love to do the Emcee in Cabaret or Guido in Nine. But the part I most want to play in Eddie in Fool For Love.” He’s also working on developing a multi-character one-man show, and is anxious to move into the director’s chair. While taking his clothes off onstage again isn’t out of the question, his fans may have to wait longer for that than they’d like. “I’ve done my last Broadway Bares,” says LaCause, referring to the annual strip-tease benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. “Three years in a row is enough. It’s time for somebody else to disrobe!”

SO MANY STARS!
Recently spotted: Producer Daryl Roth and playwright Nilo Cruz at Manhattan Theatre Club on January 29 for Cruz’s Beauty of the Father; Stephen Sondheim, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tony Kushner, Jeanine Tesori, John Weidman, Carol Kane, Richard Kind, Jacques D’Amboise,Ted Sperling, Lovette George, Shawn Elliott, Marin Ireland, and David Rockwell at The Public Sings on January 30; Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, and Project Runway contestant Andraé Gonzalo at Bridge & Tunnel on February 2; Eartha Kitt, Audra McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, and Elaine Stritch taking to the runway in Bryant Park on February 3 to model “The Red Dress Collection” for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

There will be lots of stars sharing their insights later this month. Robert LuPone, Emily Mann, Elizabeth Marvel, and Mel Marvin will participate in the Drama Book Shop’s Shop Talk series on February 13; Vanessa Redgrave will speak about the late Arthur Miller at the National Theatre in London on February 13; Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson will give a free talk before the February 14 performance of Gem of the Ocean at San Francisco’s A.C.T; Christopher Durang, Lisa Kron, Marsha Norman, John Patrick Shanley, and Diana Son will participate in the American Theater Wing’s Working in the Theatre series at CUNY on February 16; and Hitchcock Blonde star Dakin Matthews will speak as part of South Coast Rep’s Inside the Season series on February 18.

Looking farther ahead, Tony Award winner Elizabeth Ashley and Angelica Torn have agreed to star in the Broadway-bound Southern Gothic, Paul Alexander‘s new two-hander about a famous actress and her daughter. These talented ladies have a lot of shared history to fall back on: Ashley was very close friends with Torn’s beloved mother, the late, great Geraldine Page.