Experiencing the Thrill of Something New

“Somebody order a case of Jack Daniels,� says David Esbjornson. The New York director in charge of Israel Horovitz’s new play, “My Old Lady,� is only kidding, but the wisecrack helps break the deadly serious silence befalling rehearsals at the Mark Taper Forum as Esbjornson and two actors find themselves mired knee-deep in a crucial scene.

On one side of a card table topped with a couple of fake liquor bottles, New York actor Peter Friedman slouches over his script, head in hand, groping for the path that will lead his character to a climactic scene-closing meltdown. On the other side of the table, equipped with perfect posture, swept-back hair, killer cheekbones and a crisp black pantsuit, sits a commander of the British empire. Her name is Sian Phillips.

Although not well known in America, Phillips is something of a legend among theater aficionados in London’s West End. In this, her first Los Angeles stage performance, Phillips plays 94-year-old Mathilde Giffard. Madame Giffard occupies a Paris flat owned by her recently deceased American lover. When his son, self-described “loser� Jim Gold (Friedman), arrives to claim the apartment as part of his inheritance, the meetings unleash a flurry of family secrets that cause Giffard and Gold to reexamine their lives. Jan Maxwell co-stars as Mathilde’s daughter Chloe. The Mark Taper production of “My Old Lady� opens Jan. 4 at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood.

“It’s very hard work,� Phillips says a few minutes later as she strides down the Taper hallway during her lunch break, en route to a nearby cafe. “This morning, we just sort of ground to a halt. That’s part of the joy of doing a new play--and part of the torment--because you’re not totally sure what you’re shooting for. I haven’t done a new drama for years, and it’s absolutely thrilling. I’ve mostly been doing the classics, or revivals of old plays that have been proven.�

Over the course of nearly five decades on stage, Phillips has taken on Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and Shaw, earning a raft of Olivier, Tony and Drama Desk nominations along the way. She won British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards for TV productions of “I, Claudius� and “How Green Was My Valley.� She married actor Peter O’Toole, befriended playwright Tennessee Williams, channeled Marlene Dietrich in a one-woman show and garnered a fistful of honorary degrees.

But Phillips doesn’t take any of it that seriously--not even the “commander� title she recently received for her contributions to English theater. “‘Tis odd isn’t it,� she quips, “being given an honor named after an empire that no longer exists.�

Over a meal of grilled chicken, diet cola and salad, Phillips laughs when reminded that her character shaves two years off her age, lying to the American visitor that she’s only 92. The 67-year-old Phillips quit worrying about her own age long ago. “If you persist in playing your beautiful self as you were at your favorite age, maybe at 28 or 30, well, you can go on doing that for quite a while. But if you come to the point where you won’t relinquish that, you’re going to be out of work. I think I put my first white wig on at age 38. I was Judi Dench’s mother in “A Little Night Music�--and she’s the same age as I am. I played the mother of several people who were older than I was in ‘I, Claudius.’�

Livia, whom Phillips portrayed in the BBC’s groundbreaking 13-part miniseries “I, Claudius� in 1975, was no ordinary mom, but a scheming matriarch who, as wife of the emperor of Rome, kills coolly to maneuver her favorite son to the throne. Phillips says she savored Livia as the embodiment of “high camp� villainy.

The juicy Livia came fast on the heels of her first BAFTA-winning performance, in “How Green Was My Valley.� “I wasn’t all that struck by that character, this very limited Welsh mother. All she ever did was cook, as far as I could make out,� Phillips says dryly.

A star turn in the 1980 British revival of “Pal Joey� eventually led to “Marlene,� a tribute to the late actress that toured Europe and earned a Tony nomination during its New York run. Three years ago, Phillips shed the Dietrich persona and launched her own cabaret act, which she has performed in London, New York and Israel. The mid-career transformation into nightclub chanteuse has played into Phillips’ need to keep learning new aspects of her trade.

“I take a lot more [singing] lessons than I used to. I have a slight case of Trofimov-itis,� explains Phillips. “You know Trofimov, the character in ‘Cherry Orchard,’ the eternal student who never wants to finish anything, who always wants to be a student? Finding out more and more about singing ... really keeps me quite busy these days.�

Phillips was midway through London recording sessions for her first solo CD last summer just as plans for the “My Old Lady� production began to gel in New York. Horovitz and Broadway producer Richard Frankel (“Marvin’s Room,� “Angels in America�) had enlisted Esbjornson to stage the work after “Old Lady’s� 1998 premiere at Gloucester Stage in Massachusetts.

“At one point, we were just going to open in New York,� says Manhattan-based playwright Horovitz, in Los Angeles to work on the play. “Then we were thinking of a way to work on it, and I love to do plays in L.A.� The New Yorkers contacted Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson, who had first worked with Horovitz when he directed the playwright’s “Line� here in 1969. Plans were finalized to present the piece in Los Angeles, with a New York production expected to follow.

Phillips auditioned in September. Maxwell, a New York actress, has starred in three Tony-winning productions. Friedman received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for his work in “Ragtime� and “The Heidi Chronicles.� There was no room for a weak link in this three-character drama. “We saw a lot of people for this part,� says Horovitz, “And Sian was just head and shoulders above the others. There are actresses who are nice and sincere, but they just don’t have the [dramatic] size. Sian can be enormous and at the same time very subtle.� Esbjornson, whose recent credits include Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-nominated drama “In the Blood� and Edward Albee’s “The Play About the Baby,� says Phillips’ casting reinforces one of “My Old Lady’s� primary themes. “We were intentionally interested in having this play be a collision of two cultures, this kind of dark ‘American in Paris’ where the characters are butting up against cultural differences and mores and attitudes. Sian, coming from the London stage, brings a European sensibility to the piece, as opposed to Peter, who comes from this totally different background, and that difference is something that we’re celebrating.�

Esbjornson and company could hardly have found a more accomplished practitioner of British-schooled stagecraft. By the time Phillips won a scholarship to London’s famed Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1957, she had already regaled her Welsh neighbors with “miles and miles of poetry� as a 4-year-old wunderkind. At age 11, she began working professionally and was hired when she was just 18 to announce TV news for the BBC.

None of which prevented instructors at the Royal Academy from ripping the young actress to shreds. “It was total hell,� she recalls. “They’d dismantle you completely--destroy you--until you had no confidence whatsoever. But they didn’t just leave you in a puddle. They built you back up again. They did say at the time you’ll never work this hard again in your life for no reward and no mercy, and it’s true.� She pauses. “I loved every second of it.�

After graduating from the academy, Phillips met O’Toole when they were cast in the romantic comedy “The Holiday.� The play flopped but sparks flew, and in 1960, the actors married. O’Toole was, of course, part of a generation of gifted, hard-drinking actors--including Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Richard Burton and Tom Courtenay--who invigorated London’s theater scene in the ‘60s. “They were very naughty,� recalls Phillips. “I wasn’t really privy to their socializing because they were just a gaggle of boys careening all over the place. But they were also quite extraordinary actors.�

While her husband cavorted, Phillips was at home raising two young daughters. “I was in the middle of it, but I could never find swinging London,� she quips. “And while I was having the children, O’Toole got ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and became an international movie star. After that, it seemed impossible because he was away all the time.�

Having a famous husband, she said, made it tough to be taken seriously as an actress, despite her impressive stage credits. “If you’re married to someone frightfully rich and famous, people assume you just want to ride around in your Rolls-Royce and have a nice time. It was hard to persist and keep working. Also, the work had to be done when it was convenient domestically, so I had to hold back quite a bit for about 10 years or so.�

That frenetic era is chronicled in “Public Places,� the second volume, published last spring, of Phillips’ autobiography. “‘Public Places’ was difficult to write because in that book I’m dealing with live people, famous people. The libel lawyer alone kept me busy,� she chortles. “I worked with some very difficult people. I kind of enjoyed it. It makes you very resourceful when you’re being carved up by somebody.�

Case in point: the late Rex Harrison. “People criticized him because he was so bloody awful to everyone, and he was mean. But his technique was dazzling,� Phillips says. “We were doing ‘Platonov’ by Chekhov together, and we had a long drunk scene together, and I knew if I made one little mistake, he would annihilate me. So I decided, ‘I’m not going to let him wipe me out of this scene.’ I fought for my space and I got it.�

For “My Old Lady,� Phillips found inspiration of an entirely different kind when she came across an elegant old woman strolling through her London neighborhood last summer. “It was a very hot afternoon,� Phillips recalls. “I spotted this slim, very upright woman, immaculately dressed: hat, dress, shoes, stockings, perfect makeup, everything. She looked so interesting that I followed her. She went up the road toward my apartment in Kensington. Then she stopped and looked doubtful.�

Phillips invited the woman in for a glass of water and helped her with directions for the street she was trying to find. “Then, as I was letting her out the front door, she said, ‘Do you know how old I am? I’m 92. I’m only telling you this to give you courage.’ I said, ‘Well, thanks a lot,’ and off she went.

“And I don’t know if I would have had the nerve to take this part if I hadn’t had that encounter. We all have rather stereotypical ideas of age, and to have a few shining examples of people who are very bright and physically able when they’re over 90 is something that stayed vividly in my mind. Mathilde taught school until she was 93, and her mind is sharp as ever. I hope Mathilde would have a lot of this woman’s mental agility and her general ability to cope with life.�

But it’s more than coping. Esbjornson, who’s not given to overstatement, says, “In Sian, there’s a real life force there. You get the sense that this woman has had a little bit of fun.�

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“MY OLD LADY,� James A. Doolittle Theatre, 1615 N. Vine St., Hollywood. Dates: Opens Friday. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.; except Feb. 6, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Feb. 10, 2:30 p.m. only. Ends Feb. 10. Prices: $30-$44. Phone: (213) 628-2772.

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Hugh Hart is a regular contributor to Calendar.