Lynn Redgrave

Lynn Redgrave's droll performance as Mrs. Culver, the veil-sporting, epigram-happy matriarch of The Constant Wife, inspired one critic to call the two-time Tony nominee "a Lady Bracknell-in-waiting." The waiting is just about over: Redgrave will play the iconic character, a role she's coveted for years, in a Los Angeles production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest that's scheduled to reach New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2006. She'll also be seen in the November film The White Countess, along with her sister, Vanessa Redgrave, and Vanessa's daughter Natasha Richardson. Redgrave delved into her storied family's past in her acclaimed 1993 one-woman show Shakespeare for My Father, about the acclaimed actor Sir Michael Redgrave, and she recently began tackling another branch of her family tree, this time with a bit more dramatic license. She has turned various facts passed down about her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Kempson, into the beginnings of a fictional biography titled Nightingale. At 62, Redgrave has come through a publicized bout with breast cancer that informs both the work she does and the way she does it. Starring in a hit Broadway comedy, preparing for one of the great comic stage roles, developing her own work and cheering on family members: Now this is living.

How are you enjoying The Constant Wife so far?
I'm having so much fun! It really is the perfect summer job, you know? I mean, it's probably a pretty damn good job anytime, but there's something about being in a comedy in the summer that makes everybody have such a good time, the players and the watchers.

Although it isn't the frothiest of comedies.
There's definitely a serious side to it. When I first read it, I didn't think it read nearly as funny as it ended up playing. I was thinking, "Oh, this is a very serious play with a few laughs." But it sure is a crowd-pleaser.

One thing I thought was interesting is that your character begins as the voice of modernity, but as time goes on, even she is a bit taken aback by what she's hearing.
I think her idea of Constance working is, "That's bad. What is she doing working when her husband can support her?" She clings to that solid ground of the British upper middle class. She's so sure she's right all the time, but she also has quite a double standard.

Do you find Mrs. Culver at all useful in terms of training for Lady Bracknell?
I had had my eye on Lady Bracknell for a long time, thinking, "Ooh, you know, if they'd just stop casting men!" That was in vogue for a while, and I always thought it was so maddening that one of the great, great female comic roles for women of indeterminate age should be suddenly grabbed by men. And then along came Mrs. Culver, and I did think when I read it, "You know, if she were written by Oscar Wilde, she might well be Lady Bracknell a few years back." The task now is to just not do an extension of Mrs. Culver. That would be really boring. People who saw Mrs. Culver might see traces, but I hope she'll be a completely new creation.

What benefits are there in having a body of work under your belt when taking on a role like Mrs. Culver or Lady Bracknell--or any role, really?
The great thing about getting older and having a long history is that you finally feel you've got nothing to lose. When you're younger, you feel like you have everything to lose. And then you get to a point where you feel, "What the hell? I'm still here after the ups and downs that I've had. Just go for it." The thing that actually has helped me the most is my bout with cancer. I know how lucky I am, first to still be here and then to still be working, cancer or no cancer. So I work with far more freedom than I did and far less angst, and it takes some of the anxiety away. And the wonderful thing about the theater is that the great roles can go on for many years. I love the roles I've done on film, but it's unlikely that there'll be another "Driving Miss Daisy or that I'd get it if there were. But on the stage, one can go on, you know?

And if a part doesn't surface, you can just write one for yourself.
Well, yes, that is a good feeling. I look on Shakespeare for My Father now very differently than I did when I was first doing it. I was at a very low point in my career, and I thought of it as writing myself a job. In addition to the many other things I felt about it and feel about it in retrospect, it took away that victim feeling that performers sometimes get when suddenly you're not "hot" anymore. So the writing has been a fantastic boost to my confidence. I'm now developing a one-person piece called Nightingale. I'm going to do it on August 21 as part of the Women's Center Stage Festival at 45 Bleecker and also at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., on September 26. And while I don't know that it will have the wide appeal of Shakespeare for My Father, I do think it could have a few decent runs in various theaters.

This one also looks back at your family, correct?
Sort of. It's much more loosely based. Shakespeare for My Father was dramatically selective, but nonetheless, all of it was true. I knew very little about my maternal grandmother. There were these certain sort of family myths passed down by my mother about her. Just these tantalizing things. She seemed to me like this little, thin sad creature who did thin, sad things, and yet she can't have been born that way. And so I've taken the tantalizing things, changed her name and written a piece. About six years ago, I decided to visit my grandfather and grandmother's graves in Chiswick, outside London. I hadn't seen them in 40, 45 years. A lot of acid rain falls on Europe, and the acid rain had washed away all the writing on the headstones, so I couldn't find their graves. And that upset me quite dreadfully. When [brother] Corin, Vanessa and I go, who will remember her? We will all pass on, but we do want to be remembered. We want there to be a little mark to say that we were here once.

And that's where Nightingale comes in?
Yes, in a way. Here's a woman who, like many, many others, appeared to lead an unremarkable life but who nonetheless laughed and cried and had children. So it's like making a little mark.

Since you've begun writing your own pieces, do you look at scripts differently as an actress?
I'm not quite sure. I can't tell whether it's from my writing or just from doing it for a very long time, you know? I'm quite good, I think, at dissecting a script--feeling the sense of the language, what secrets are within it, seeing trouble spots. I can easily tell when a character leaps off the page at me, and that's usually to do with good writing. To give an example, Bill Condon's writing in both Gods and Monsters and my little scene in Kinsey leaps off the page to me.

Looking back on your own career, what performances stand out?
The Hay Fever I did with Noel Coward. I can never forget that. Saint Joan. I think Mother Courage. In more recent years--or, actually, not that recent now, time goes so fast--Masha in The Three Sisters and Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard. Two of my absolute favorites, and I think I did them justice. Miss Fozzard in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. If I had to narrow it down...Saint Joan and Masha and Miss Fozzard.

Not your own pieces?
Oh, I didn't know I was allowed to do that. OK, I would like to be remembered for Shakespeare for My Father. As I learned when I did it, the search for a relationship with a parent is absolutely universal and goes across all boundaries. There was a guy who saw it six times because he had such issues with his dead father, and he said, "Even at Broadway prices, it's a better value than therapy." A lot of therapists came to it and sent their patients if they were having issues with parents living or dead. And when I was doing it at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C., we did a signed performance, and all these people from Gallaudet University came. We did a signed talkback afterward. I don't understand sign language, unfortunately, but my God, this one young man's signing was the most graceful, extraordinary, beautiful thing to see... and he said through the interpreter that he was going to see his parents that weekend and had not been looking forward to it. And after seeing the play, he just wanted to go home and hug his father. And then he threw his arms around me and started crying. That was thrilling.

Do you try to see your other family members' shows? Did you see Natasha in A Streetcar Named Desire or Vanessa in Hecuba?
I go to everything. I couldn't see Hecuba--it had the same schedule [as The Constant Wife]--but I stayed at Vanessa's in England in March, and I heard her lines quite a lot. I saw Streetcar twice. It gives me great pride and pleasure to see the family act. My brother is recovering from a very, very serious cardiac arrest, and I don't know when he will be able to work again. But I saw him play Archie Rice in The Entertainer, up in Liverpool, in the theater where our parents met and married. So the ghosts in there were extraordinary, and Corin was unbelievably brilliant. I saw my niece Jemma [Redgrave] do an amazing Titania a couple of years ago. I haven't seen Joely [niece Joely Richardson] on stage for many, many years because she's doing a lot of films and television. I catch her in Nip/Tuck when I can.

What do you have coming up?
Well, Earnest is for nearly six months, starting in December. We do seven weeks at the Ahmanson, go to various cities and then come to BAM for four weeks in April. And they're talking about adding another city, which they haven't specified, for three weeks after that.

Plus you've got some writing to do.
I've always got plenty to do, that's for sure. And I do love time off. I have grandchildren and grown children and friends and a life, and I like to make the most of it. So it'll be good to have a bit of time off, but on the other hand, if I get good work, that's good, too.

When it comes, take it.
[Laughing] As I know only too well.