Still Me (23 page)

A Month in the Country
with Joanne Hamlin (not my summertime romance).

Even more so was the fact that the lead actress in the play—twenty-three, beautiful, and a recent graduate of Carnegie-Mellon—was interested in me. She was engaged to a fellow Carnegie alumnus, who was in California for the summer writing sketches for a television variety show. They planned to save some money and get married in the fall. He used to phone exactly at seven o'clock every Sunday evening. But before long I had moved from the fourth floor of the dorm down to her room on the second, where we'd light candles, listen to the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, read from
The Prophet
, and work on my education as a lover. Soon she stopped answering the phone on Sunday evenings.

The summer and our relationship progressed beautifully. One morning, however, our smooth romance turned briefly into a French farce. There was a knock on the door at seven o'clock. Still half asleep she called out, “Just leave the sheets by the door.” There was a pause, and then a male voice boomed, “It's me!” I bolted out of bed and began a frantic hunt for my clothes, which were strewn all over the room. For a moment I considered jumping out the window; then I remembered that we were on the second floor. There was no choice but to face the music. Once we had pulled some clothes on, we took a deep breath and opened the door. There was an excruciating silence; then she said simply, “This is my friend Christopher. But you wouldn't understand.” I quickly excused myself and retreated to the fourth floor. The two of them spent the day taking a long walk by the Charles River. That evening he caught a plane back to Los Angeles. I don't think they ever saw each other again.

In the fall I began my senior year at PDS, and she found a job with a repertory company in Providence so we could continue to see each other. Every Friday after school I would take the train up to join her for a romantic weekend, but I had to make sure to get back on Sunday in time to finish my homework. Before long something about it didn't feel right. Once again I was trying too hard. It was almost as if I had cast myself in the role of an eligible partner. The age difference hadn't seemed to matter during the summer, but now it became an issue. In late October we split up and went back to our own worlds. By the end of the year she was engaged to one of the designers at the rep company, and I was dating a girl in my class.

Sometimes in the winter of 1970–71 I would look out the windows of the Cornell University library and wonder what I was doing there. After graduating from Princeton Day School in June 1970, I played a season of summer stock in Boothbay, Maine. I had planned to go to New York in the fall, find a cheap apartment, and join the ranks of young hopefuls trying for a career in the theater. But my mother, who had dropped out of college to get married and start a family, always regretted that she had not gotten her B.A. She convinced me that it all didn't have to happen so quickly—that four years of study and personal growth would only help me later on. She knew that there is a big difference between taking on New York at seventeen and starting a life there at twenty-one or twenty-two.

I had also been accepted at Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, Princeton, and Carnegie-Mellon, but I chose Cornell not only for its excellent liberal arts program and theater department but because it was a five-hour drive from the city and tended to be snowed in from the end of October to the first of May. I thought this would make it easier for me to focus on my studies and avoid the temptation to drop out of school and go to New York. But on snowy nights in the library, working on a paper for Russian Literature or Philosophy of Religion, I often felt that it was all irrelevant and that I was arbitrarily being forced to postpone my goal of becoming a professional actor. I wasted a number of evenings when I should have been studying by joining the group sliding on cafeteria trays down Library Slope to the dorms at the bottom of the hill. Sometimes I just sat and stared at the cinder-block walls of my room, wondering if I would ever be free.

In retrospect, my years at Cornell were invaluable—not so much for the academics but because I was given an opportunity to experiment and mature without the added burden of having to make a living in the competitive marketplace of New York. The theater department was first-rate, with acting, movement, and voice classes available to undergraduates. The MFA program was under the direction of John Clancy, a superb director and chairman of the department. Casting for the main stage productions was open to the entire university. With a student body of fourteen thousand, competition was fierce, but the productions were often exceptional. During my freshman year I saw a
Long Day's Journey into Night
that was more powerful than any I've seen in the twenty-three years since I graduated. Having nothing to lose, I tried out for the male lead in Brecht's
The Good Woman of Setzuan
, the first offering of the 1970–71 season, and got the part. Over the next couple of years I was fortunate enough to play Pozzo in
Waiting for Godot
, Segismundo in Calderón's
Life Is a Dream
, Hamlet in
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
, and Polixenes in
The Winter's Tale
, as well as to perform in several student projects with the MFA company.

Some of these productions were directed by professors who took an academic approach; others were directed with what I call the “acting” approach. I found the difference between the two both fascinating and frustrating. I believe that when you're acting, you shouldn't be concerned with literary themes; you need to approach the work on an instinctual and emotional level. This is what allows the audience to experience the play as the unfolding of recognizable human experience and prevents the classics from becoming museum pieces.

Peter Steltzer, a twenty-six-year-old maverick in the Theater Department, applied the latter approach. He directed
Waiting for Godot
without ever talking about themes, symbolism, or “meaning.” The result was an original production that had aspects of vaudeville, circus clowning, classical theater, and Theater of the Absurd. It was a resounding success. I was directed to play Pozzo as a carnival barker with a Cambridge accent and my voice pitched to a high register. Often when I asked Peter for the logic behind my behavior, he explained that his main interest was in creating a novel theatrical effect. Soon I abandoned my preconceived notions about the sanctity of Beckett and gave in to Peter's innovative ideas. I found the end result surprisingly satisfying. Much as in the
Death of a Salesman
at Harvard the previous summer, the boldness of the director's vision produced something truly original.

As Pozzo—an outsized performance that worked.

On the other hand, the production of
Life Is a Dream
was arduous and stultifying because the director was a pure academic. Much of our rehearsal time was spent comparing the play with
Hamlet
and discussing its significance and place in theater history. The staging was conventional, and the translation we used was literal to the point of being boring. The story of a young prince who is banished from the kingdom because a fortune-teller predicts that he will one day murder his father could easily lend itself to a vibrant, modern interpretation. The entire cast tried as hard as we could, but we weren't able to make it come alive. Just before we opened I spent a lot of time on the phone urging my friends—especially my new girlfriend, Helen—not to come. She came anyway out of loyalty and/or curiosity. We went out afterwards and luckily had much to talk about besides my poor performance in a deadly production of an obscure seventeenth-century Spanish play.

If I had learned nothing else at Cornell, discovering this difference between drama as literature and drama as a living presence would have been worth my three years there. My mother had been right. At Cornell I triumphed and failed, learning patience and self-discipline in a safe and nurturing environment.

My newfound patience was put to the test in the fall of my freshman year, when I received a letter from Stark Hesseltine, one of the most respected agents in New York. A classy, soft-spoken gentleman with a Harvard degree, he had discovered Robert Redford when the star was still a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He also represented Michael Douglas, Richard Chamberlain, Susan Sarandon, Stephen Collins, and many other fine actors whose work was familiar to me from reading the “Arts & Leisure” section of
The New York Times
every Sunday while stuck in the frozen hinterlands of Ithaca.

I left the unopened letter on my desk for about a day and a half, torturing myself with speculation as to why he would be writing me. I decided there could only be two possible reasons: (a) It was a routine letter inviting me to get in touch when I graduated from college; or (b) it was a pitch for me to drop out of college now and come to New York as his client, which would violate the agreement I'd made with my mother and Tris. Finally, I opened it. Choice B was correct: he had seen my performance in
A Month in the Country
and wanted to represent me. Would it be convenient for me to meet him in New York at some time in the near future? I was tremendously flattered and excited and had to force myself to keep my mouth shut around the Theater Department. I left the open letter on my desk and frequently sidled over to see if it still said the same thing. Then I called Stark, thanked him for the note, and casually mentioned that I would be free on Monday.

That morning I left Ithaca at six and was parked in front of the offices of Creative Management Associates—at the time one of the most prestigious and powerful agencies in the business—by eleven. As I went up in the elevator in my blazer, rumpled khakis, and loafers, I felt hopelessly out of place and was sure that Stark would take one look at me and change his mind. In fact, he couldn't have been more welcoming. I was ushered into his office, and he gave instructions to hold all his calls. Then he turned to me and said, “Well, you're too tall for films, but never mind.” I was puzzled by this but didn't say anything. I had assumed height differences in movies could be manipulated by camera angles or by putting the shorter scene partner up on a box. Then he added, “When are you available?” I explained the agreement with my parents, and was amazed when he said they'd made a wise decision. He told me how much he'd enjoyed his years at Harvard, where he was the stage manager with the Hasty Pudding Club. We decided that I would come down from Cornell about once a month to meet casting agents and producers and that we would concentrate on finding work for the summer vacations.

A recommendation from Stark Hesseltine could open almost any door. Through him I met David Merrick, Robert Whitehead, and Kermit Bloomgarden, three of the most important Broadway producers at the time; Andrea Eastman, the casting director at Paramount; Joseph Papp, who ran the prestigious Public Theater; and many others. Some executives were impressed with me. Others were not. I remember opening the door to Joe Papp's office to find him wearing a pinstriped gangster suit, his feet up on the desk, smoking a cigar. I'd taken only about two steps into the room before he looked over, dumped the ash from his cigar, and muttered, “Christ, more white bread.” I went through my audition piece from
Henry V
, after which I was
not
invited to sit down and chat. (When they don't want to talk to you after you've done your bit, it's not a good sign.)

I left his office and ran to a phone to tell Stark that I was sorry I'd bombed, but that I'd do better next time. But Papp had already called, and soon I understood the frosty reception. He was trying to build a company of real ethnic diversity. He believed strongly in nontraditional casting and wanted more actors like Raul Julia (Latino) and Cleavon Little (African-American), not an earnest WASP like me. But when Stark believed in an actor, he never gave up; I auditioned at least a dozen times during the seventies for various productions at the Public. Every time the part would be cast in a completely different way. Much later, in January 1989, when the politics of the theater had changed and directors were given more autonomy in casting, James Lapine asked me to costar with Mandy Patinkin in
The Winter's Tale.
After watching a run-through, Joe Papp took me aside and said, “We should have used you before.”

As the summer approached I drove down from Cornell more frequently and met with some success. A day trip to New York meant ten hours on the road, often followed by pulling an all-nighter to complete a paper for a nine-thirty class the next morning; so the more I drove, the more determined I became to make the trip worthwhile. I was cast in a production of
The Lion in Winter
that was going to rehearse and perform in Bermuda for ten weeks; I was offered a small part in the film of
The Great Gatsby
with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow; and I got one of the leads in Michael Weller's
Moonchildren
for the renowned director Alan Schneider.