Theater News

Feat of Clayburgh

After 20 years, Jill Clayburgh returns to Broadway in two shows: A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and Barefoot in the Park.

Jill Clayburgh as Bess Lapinin A Naked Girl on the Appian Way
(Photo © Joan Marcus)
Jill Clayburgh as Bess Lapin
in A Naked Girl on the Appian Way
(Photo © Joan Marcus)

Let’s get one thing straight: The title A Naked Girl on the Appian Way is not a reference to Jill Clayburgh’s character in the new Richard Greenberg comedy. For her first Broadway show in 20 years — she was last seen on the Main Stem in a Circle in the Square revival of Design For Living — the 61-year-old actress is keeping her clothes on. She plays Bess Lapin, a famous cookbook author and wife whose world is turned down upside down when two of her three adopted children return from overseas with some startling news.

Clayburgh is thrilled to be working on the play, which might best be described as the stepchild of Edward Albee and Neil Simon. She has nothing but praise for her co-stars, including Richard Thomas as her husband, and especially kind words for Tony Award-winning director Doug Hughes. “I did a production of All My Sons with Doug and Richard Dreyfuss at Westport a couple of years ago,” she says. “He has this kind of invisible way of working, which a lot of good directors have; it’s more of a coaxing than stamping something on you, and it works well for me.”

As it happens, Clayburgh is particularly well suited to the role of Bess. “I’m very comfortable in the kitchen,” says the actress, who collects cookbooks and even reads them for fun. “I probably don’t have the same expertise as Bess, and I am not a big dessert maker, but I do love to cook.” While she doesn’t turn the oven on in the show, Clayburgh does begin to prepare a very complex salad onstage in each performance. “The script says it has 49 ingredients, so I’ve been working on perfecting my chopping skills,” she says. “I love the fact that I’m doing something real onstage.”

Nor is the maternal aspect of her role a stretch: Clayburgh and her husband, award-winning playwright David Rabe (Hurlyburly), are the proud parents of two children. Twenty-three-year-old Lily, a Drama Desk Award nominee for her work as Annelle in Steel Magnolias, is now co-starring in the MCC production of Colder Than Here, and 19-year-old Michael is in college. (Rabe also has a son, Stephen, from his first marriage; according to his stepmom, he’s a wonderful cook.) So it’s not surprising that Clayburgh will be playing a mom again later this Broadway season, in the revival of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Set to begin performances in Feburary under the direction of Scott Elliot, the show also stars Patrick Wilson, Amanda Peet, and Tony Roberts (who replaced Robert Redford as Paul Bratter in the original Broadway production).

Jill Clayburgh and Lily Rabe
(Photo © Michael Portantiere)
Jill Clayburgh and Lily Rabe
(Photo © Michael Portantiere)

“I’m excited because the part has such great humor,” Clayburgh enthuses, “and I can certainly relate to having a daughter and learning to let go, wanting to tell her what she’s really too young to know.” Still, it’s a bit difficult to envision this vivacious, beautiful actress in a role created on stage — and re-created on screen — by the dowdy Mildred Natwick. “Well, in those days, the mother’s life might have been over by her age, which certainly wouldn’t be true today,” Claburgh remarks. “That’s one reason it’s so important that they keep the play set in the 1960s. It’s kind of a prerequisite for its charm. After all, it’s about a couple who didn’t sleep together before they got married.”

Speaking of sleeping arrangements, she and Lily are currently sharing an apartment in New York. “It’s a little scary, since we’re both nervous wrecks about our shows,” she says. Clayburgh didn’t exactly encourage her daughter to follow in her footsteps, but neither did she dissuade her: “We talked about the vicissitudes of the business, but when she was just a sophomore in college, we did two plays together at Gloucester Stage — one by Frank Pugliese, one by Israel Horowitz — and she was just incredible. So I think there was no question that she was going to become an actress.”

In contrast, acting didn’t at first seem a natural path for Clayburgh, who grew up in a privileged New York City household and attended the posh Brearley Finishing School before going on to Sarah Lawrence University. She first came to theatergoers’ attention in 1968, when she replaced Marsha Mason in the Off-Broadway production of Horowitz’s It’s Called The Sugar Plum and then made her Broadway debut later that year opposite Jack Klugman in The Sudden and Accidental Re-Education of Horse Johnson, which lasted one week. Clayburgh had much longer runs in her next three Broadway shows: The Rothschilds, Pippin, and Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers.

For the past 30 years, Clayburgh has worked steadily in film and television. She received Oscar nominations for An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over, Emmy nominations for the 1975 TV movie Hustling and, just this year, for an episode of Nip/Tuck. “It’s not something you campaign for,” she says, “so getting the nomination was like getting an unexpected check in the mail.” (She lost the award to Amanda Plummer.)


Ryan Murphy, the creator of Nip/Tuck, is keeping Clayburgh plenty busy; he’s tapped her to play Pat Nixon in his movie adaptation of John Jeter’s play Dirty Tricks, and she co-stars in his soon-to-be-released film of Augusten Burrough’s memoir Running With Scissors alongside Annette Benning, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, and Brian Cox. “Running With Scissors is an odd story,” Clayburgh comments, “but I think Augusten is amazing. He’s very dry but a really lovely guy. And working with Ryan Murphy, Doug Hughes, and Scott Elliott in one year is pretty great.”