PARKER STEVENSON HAS DOUBLE DUTY

Most actors have a hard enough time remembering their lines, hitting their marks and reaching the back of the house. But what if you’re playing both leading roles: going off stage as one character and coming back in the next second as the other--identical twins who don’t walk, talk or act alike?

Patty Duke did it on television with her “Patty Duke Show” in the ‘60s. Now Parker Stevenson is doing it on the stage, playing snotty Hugo and gentle Frederic in Jean Anouilh’s “Ring Round the Moon” (at the Colony through Sept. 6).

“I loved the script. I loved the idea of the two characters,” said the actor. “I can’t remember the last time I was asked to play twin brothers. For the first 10 years of my career, I basically played Frederic types: sincere, clean-cut and well-meaning. But for the last five years, I’ve enjoyed playing less predictable characters (including a drug addict on “Falcon Crest”). So now, in the same show, I get to do both. I just walk behind the screen, come out--and I’m the other guy.”

It isn’t always so easy. “That’s true,” he nodded. “You can’t get from up-center stage to stage right unless you go all the way around stage left, through the lobby and around the back of the theater. But the hardest part is remembering where and who I’m supposed to be when I step on stage. And having enough breath after those runs to come in and not be winded--since I’m playing a character who shouldn’t be winded.”

All of which are bearable concerns. Stevenson is having a ball doing the play--his first in four years, since he and wife Kirstie Alley co-starred in Ernest Thompson’s “Answers” at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Jupiter, Fla. (On television, they both appeared in “North and South, Book II,” but not together: She filmed in town for two weeks, he was away on location for six months.) Lately, with Alley working days (on “Cheers”) and Stevenson nights, catch-up time is generally limited to weekends and early-morning coffee.

It beats long-distance separations. “Those can be horrible,” he said bluntly. “I think that’s the killer in this business, why marriages don’t last. You get on location and you’re disconnected from everything; you don’t even feel married anymore. So we make lots of phone calls, get on lots of planes. And when neither of us is working, we spend all our time together: on the house (an 8,000 square-footer in Encino, built by Al Jolson), the animals (a miniature horse, bunnies, birds, dogs, cats, ducks) and seeing friends. We rarely go out to dinner. We almost never go to parties.”

They met five years ago: “Kirstie picked me up in a bar. At the time, I was burned out--and she had this wonderful conviction and joy about what she was doing. I’d lost that. So being around her was great. I also liked her because she looked like she’d just stepped off a Harley Davidson--a tough chick. But she’s really a sweetheart.”

Born in Pennsylvania, Stevenson spent his infancy “in the dining room drawer of a Manhattan apartment,” venturing into commercials at 14. A young stunner? “Actually, I was a horrendously ugly kid,” he said good-naturedly. “My mother had given me a crew cut. I had huge buck teeth because I’d sucked my thumb when I was little. My ears stuck out three inches from my head. My eyes were so close together I looked cross-eyed.”

By the time he got to Hollywood, his appearance had improved. “The first jobs I got were because I’d gone to prep schools (and Princeton); I had that preppy look.” The look led to his big break, co-starring with Shaun Cassidy on ABC’s 1977-79 series “The Hardy Boys Mysteries.” Goodby, obscurity.

“Suddenly all the (publicity) machinery was cranking up: the lunch boxes, posters, T-shirts. And there was this teen-age audience that got locked into the show. . . . Being stared at was so uncomfortable. I couldn’t go to the beach, I couldn’t go to McDonald’s. There were girls always hanging around my trailer. Now when people compliment me, it’s flattering. Before it wasn’t; I felt you could’ve taken any two kids, stuck them in the show and cranked out the same effect.”

But don’t think he’s ungrateful.

“The exposure I got from the series launched my career. It also signified the end of a phase. I kept getting offered ‘Hardy Boy’-ish roles, things trying to cash in on that. For three years, I tried to convince everyone I could do more. The person who helped break (the pattern) was Burt Reynolds (who cast him in “Stroker Ace”). He said, ‘You’re an actor. You can do this.’ And it was the beginning of playing characters who were different.”

Like Hugo. And Frederic.