Laurie Metcalf
Meet Laurie Metcalf, zeitgeist-surfer. In her long and varied career, the actress has always had a knack for catching the wave of the next big thing. Right out of college, she and a group of Chicago friends started Steppenwolf Theatre, which grew into one of America's most distinguished companies. Her 20-minute monologue in Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead is an off-Broadway legend. Later, she picked up a little sitcom called Roseanne, which rewrote the rules of television comedy with its unblinking look at blue collar life. Now Metcalf is exercising her gift for being up to the minute on Broadway, co-starring in David Mamet's new comedy November. It's a Mamet play unlike any other, with the structure of a classic comedy in the Kaufman & Hart vein but filled with scabrous jokes on such hot-button topics as the torture of prisoners, campaign fundraising, the Middle East and gay marriage. Nathan Lane stars as a U.S. President willing to shake down the national turkey lobby to save his faltering re-election campaign, with Metcalf as his lesbian speechwriter, who's not above a little blackmail to get married on national television. A native of Carbondale, Illinois, Metcalf is married to actor Matt Roth they played husband and wife for a while on Roseanne and is the mother of children ranging from 24-year-old actress Zoe Perry with her first husband, Steppenwolf member Jeff Perry, currently in August: Osage County to two-year-old-Mae Roth, reportedly born via a surrogate mother. The wry and witty actress took time out during previews to chat about her Broadway homecoming.
It's been almost 13 years since you were last on stage in New York. Were you looking to do a Broadway show?
I wasn't. I was getting my regular theater fix at Steppenwolf—but I've been dying to get back to New York. When I heard about the combination of Mamet and Nathan and [director] Joe Mantello, I didn't even have to read the script. I couldn't wait to get here. I'd love to walk in and see this play; Nathan just slays me in it.
No. We talked a lot about it in the rehearsal room. I really connected with the fact that she's a new mother. She's the voice of morality, but has slipped into doing things she wouldn't normally do. But having a family has hit her; she now sees things in a slightly different way.
You're a relatively new mother yourself, aren't you?
I'm a crazy mother [laughs].
Is your family here with you?
No, it's very complicated. One reason I haven't been to New York in a long time is I felt I had to be situated in L.A., for whatever reasons—they're all bad, because I'd much rather be here or in Chicago. This has divided the family for the length of time the show runs; we're having the kids go back and forth, and that's hard. But, selfishly, I just couldn't pass it up, because theater is my life.
Early on, the buzz was that the comedy in November slowed down after intermission—but now, both acts are playing well. Were there rewrites?
There's been some tinkering. We moved the intermission to a different spot. It used to be after the first blackout, right after Nathan says, "I want $200 million on my desk tomorrow morning, or I'm going to pardon every fucking turkey in America." That was 45 minutes. Then Scenes II and III, combined, were 45 minutes. Two weeks into previews, Joe split it between Scenes II and III. Now the first act is one hour, 15 minutes, and the second half, which we call "the little bitch…" [laughs]
The little bitch?
Because we never thought that the third scene—where it truly turns farcical—could stand up on her own. But she does! [Laughs.] That's 30 minutes. Also, the plot, about what [Lane's character] will or won't do for gay marriage—starts in the second scene.
You and Mamet must have been in Chicago at the same time, but I can't find any evidence that you've ever done his plays.
I never met him in Chicago; I only met him after he came to see All My Sons at the Geffen Theatre a couple of years ago. He gave the whole cast beautiful handwritten notes. Nathan and I were in Williamstown together in She Stoops to Conquer about 150 years ago. But we did seven episodes of [the short-lived sitcom] Charlie Lawrence together.
Didn't that show have a political theme?
Yes! Nathan was a Congressman, who had been a Touched by an Angel-type of TV star. I begged him to keep me in mind for a play. I knew I would love working onstage with him.
You're the grand-niece of playwright Zoe Akins, who had a long Broadway career in the 1920s and 1930s. Were you aware of that growing up?
Just vaguely. Her works are at the Huntington Museum in Pasadena, but I haven't been there to look them up. I have a copy of the Pulitzer Prize notice that she got for The Old Maid. And my daughter's name is Zoe—I kept the name in the family.
So that wasn't a factor in you getting into the theater?
No. Nobody in my family felt like there was a shred of entertainment in our makeup at all. None. The closest we came was doing backyard shows on the swing set.
When did it happen for you?
It was in college, as I bounced around in different majors, thinking I could never make a living as an actor. I fell in with the group that formed Steppenwolf .
Did you know from the get-go that Steppenwolf was going to be something special?
We had no sense, the first summer we got together, that it would last past the summer. And this was 31 seasons ago. Thirty-one years ago? [She winces in mock pain.]
Yeah! Laughs. But a couple of things happened that made us stronger as went along. First of all, we all shared a wicked sense of humor and liked to show off for each other. And, it turned out, we had some really talented directors. No one wanted to direct; we all wanted to be onstage. But somebody had to do it, and people took turns—and it turned out that we had some really good ones. Also, we were in a suburb of Chicago, and people didn't swoop in, to sweep us off to New York or L.A. We just continued on our own for years, rehearsing a play in the day, and performing a different one at night. A lot of times, we did parts that we wouldn't get cast in anywhere else, because we'd play all the ages. It made us stronger. It was a great city to be doing something like that. They were very forgiving of us.
Steppenwolf is an ensemble, and most of its celebrated productions are ensemble shows. And yet what theater company has produced more famous actors?
It is funny. You're right.
Were you all competitive with each other?
Only in seeing who could make each other laugh the most.
And there were many marriages…
Oh yes. It was very incestuous.
Your personal watershed was coming to New York and doing Balm in Gilead?
Yes. The run was nine months; it's still the longest run I've ever done. And it's so cool, because about every three months or so I run into somebody who saw it and remembers it. It's so nice when that happens, because I remember it so fondly, too. What an ensemble that was.
Do you have an ongoing involvement with Steppenwolf?
I try to do something there every two years. Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune was three years ago, so need to get back. [Artistic Director] Martha Lavey is so open to any suggestions about anything we want to bring in, or a part we want to play. But we're sort of spread out now, scattered around; I don't see nearly as many shows there as I should or want to.
We are, of course, experiencing the Chicago takeover of Broadway this season.
I know. Kevin Anderson is right next door, in Come Back, Little Sheba…
…and there's a few Chicago actors at the Imperial [in August: Osage County], as you know.
All the stars came together on that one. For all of us to be on Broadway together? My god...
Is there a Steppenwolf mystique—the idea of rock 'n' roll theater?
I think all of us had such a love of acting on stage that it sparked an energy level among us—and maybe that's what people saw. It's still happening; I see it in August. But what actor wouldn't want to do that kind of gritty material, sprinkled with so many great laughs? It's so meaty that way.
You've been doing a lot of television in the last couple of years.
What do you call them? Guest shots.
Your current husband, Matt Roth, killed you off on Desperate Housewives, and he used to beat you up on Roseanne.
I never put those two things together. But yeah. Yeah. He threw a can of peaches at my head on Desperate Housewives, to take me out [laughs].
Roseanne was a hot-button show. Were you aware of that when you were doing it?
Not all the time. It was obvious from day one that Roseanne [Barr] was willing to sacrifice a laugh to be about something that hadn't been on TV before. She wrote the monologue that she gave at her father's casket. She put in stuff about abuse, and things that her daughters were going through in real life. However she did it, she had the knack of knowing what people would respond to. And she surrounded us with great writers who could make it funny and real. The timing was really great, because the show had a smell of realism to it that a lot of sitcoms didn't have at that moment.
I would. I got so spoiled on Roseanne.
They don't come along every day.
I was so lucky to be involved in a show that I feel really proud of. It's the same when people say they saw me in Balm in Gilead. It's just a good feeling, because you know they remember it in a way that you can't deny it meant something.
There's a certain kind of sitcom fame that can imprison an actor forever as a particular character. Any idea why you escaped that?
Maybe because I didn't have a catch phrase, or a leather jacket, or big glasses. I don't know.
Do you see the people from Roseanne anymore?
John Goodman came to the last play that I did at the Geffen. He was so sweet. I run into Sara Gilbert at the Farmers Market in L.A. every Sunday. I haven't seen Roseanne since she came to see All My Sons. But it's like with the Steppenwolf crowd—it's a family, in that I truly feel that I'm related to both those groups. You can go for years without talking to them and, when you do, it's like no time has passed.
Are there any roles you're dying to play?
Yeah. I've been thinking—well, it sounds ridiculous—but sometime I've got to do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I'd wrestle it into something I could do—that, I promise. I've been obsessing about that lately.
Has Steppenwolf ever done it?
No! We could never get the rights. I played Honey once; that was fun.
Was your last Broadway show [the short-lived 1995 play], My Thing of Love, a Steppenwolf production, too?
Yes, it was…but it morphed along the way, with different producers, director, different actors in it besides me. It got off on the wrong foot and never got straight again. But I love that playwright, Alexandra Gersten. I love the play. It was probably in too big a house [the Martin Beck, now the Al Hirschfeld]. The director got fired. All kinds of things happened.
I gather this has been a much happier experience.
This has been a blast. And, you know, there's nothing going on in L.A.
But you couldn't have known that.
Well, it was a part of my decision. I knew the strike was coming up. That part of it did work out—as hard as it is to be away, family-wise.
So it's been worth the trip?
Oh yeah!
See Laurie Metcalf in November at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
