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‘85 IS YEAR OF THEATER FOR HOUSEMAN

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Times Staff Writer

Despite the amazing pace he sets for himself and the indefatigable energy that drives him--in his 82nd year--to direct Shakespeare’s monstrous historical drama, “Richard III,” John Houseman has definitely mellowed.

At least that’s the impression of actress Jacqueline Brookes, who is playing the prescient widow, Mad Margaret, for Houseman in the Old Globe Theatre’s “Richard,” opening Friday.

“He’s more understanding, patient. But that’s not his nature, really, to be patient,” she said. Brookes, who first worked with Houseman almost 30 years ago, was talking about the Mad Margaret-like fit she pitched at a rehearsal, defending lines Houseman wanted to cut from her role. Instead of an equally robust outburst, Houseman’s reply was an unexpected, “You win.”

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“In the past we would have had a lot more from him,” Brookes said. “I mean, he could put the fear of God into anybody.”

Yet the willingness to see others’ points of view has contributed to Houseman’s fabulous success in a multitude of careers spanning 64 years of adult life. This native of Romania, who wrote of becoming a “merchant prince” in the grain industry before the stock-market crash, eventually found himself at 31 directing the premiere of a Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thomson opera, which catapulted him into the yeastiest period of growth in the history of the American stage--a 50-year relationship that has benefited the theater as much as it has Houseman.

Along the way, he dipped significantly into radio, motion pictures, television and the education of actors. Characteristically, he still does it all, but 1985, Houseman says, “happens to be my theater year.” The day that “Richard” opens, he’s off to prepare a tour of the Acting Company to London where it will perform, and Houseman will narrate, Marc Blitzstein’s “The Cradle Will Rock” at the Old Vic (he presided over the play’s controversial premiere in 1937). After London, he’ll go to Dallas to stage a revival of his 1962 production of Verdi’s “Otello” for the Dallas Civic Opera.

Houseman talked to reporters recently before a rehearsal for “Richard,” which he is directing for the first time. Why, he was asked, are people fascinated with the character of Richard?

“Because he’s baaaad ,” the familiar resonance boomed. “He comes right on and says I am bad--you watch what I do for the next two hours; it’ll amuse you to see how bad I can be. And that is fascinating.”

The play that begins with the familiar “Now is the winter of our discontent . . .” proceeds through escalating deceit and mayhem to a last bloody battle scene (“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”) and ends with a sweet paean to peace is not, Houseman said, a true Shakespearean history. “Unlike some of the other histories, it’s written as a tragic play rather than a chronicle. It just happens to be tacked on to the chronicles.”

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The period of the play was a terrifying era, he said. “There’s no reason to suppose that Richard individually had the princes murdered. And they were every bit as bad as Shakespeare made out Richard; they were all cutting each others’ heads off--a real vipers’ nest.”

With so much evil, why use such an acclaimed comic actor as Paxton Whitehead in the title role?

“The great Richard IIIs--Barrymore, for instance--played it very much for comedy, and Olivier played it for comedy a lot of the time in the film. The challenge is really for a comedian to play a tragic role. That’s why I was very pleased and excited with the idea of doing it with Paxton. The comedy as Shakespeare wrote it is continuous, until the end when he just becomes awful. It’s a grim sort of comedy. It depends on what you mean by it--nowadays we have dubious views about comedy.”

Houseman’s multi-tracked career includes collaborative work with Orson Welles in the famed Mercury Theatre, a stint as a movie company vice president and work as the administrator and creator of the “Voice of America” programming during World War II.

He returned to movies after the war, producing 18 feature films between 1945 and 1962, including the Marlon Brando “Julius Caesar.” Television followed, with Houseman winning three Emmy Awards in live television’s heyday as a producer of “Playhouse 90” and “The Seven Lively Arts.”

Besides being a prolific writer (plays, adaptations, three volumes of memoirs, book reviews and numerous other newspaper and magazine articles), Houseman’s late-in-life career in acting has been no less successful than anything else he’s attempted.

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He became interchangeable in the public mind with the gruff law professor he played in “The Paper Chase.” Other movie and TV appearances have included “The Cheap Detective,” “Ghost Story,” “Winds of War” and “A.D.” In preparation are an anthology of his written works and lectures and “Confessions of a Malcontent,” an account of his creative alliances with the left wing in the heady 1930s.

Houseman came to direct “Richard” in much the same capricious way he’s come to a lot of his work: The telephone beckoned.

“It was a phone call,” Houseman recalled, “the day Jim Bridges asked ‘Would you like to play a professor in ‘Paper Chase?’ and I said ‘Don’t be a horse’s ass.’ ” Within a month Houseman was playing Professor Kingsfield, winning an Oscar for best supporting actor.

This time, Globe Artistic Director Jack O’Brien was calling. Houseman first knew him 20 years ago when O’Brien was Ellis Rabb’s assistant with the A.P.A. Repertory Co., which Houseman eventually served as producing director. O’Brien had called to ask if he could replace Joseph Hardy, who had had to give up the “Richard III” assignment for a television offer.

Houseman smiled. “It’s always a phone call.”

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