‘Character Guy’ Plays Variations on a Shady Theme

You know the face, if not the name. In his 17 years as an actor, Robert Costanzo has played just about every character role in the book: drunken sergeants, kindly fathers, nasty gang lords and monosyllabic plumbers--and, as his bio notes good-naturedly, variations on “Brick-Throwing Thug No. 1” and “Sleazy Attorney No. 2.”

The niceness quotient isn’t much higher for Costanzo’s current role, as a shady resale-store owner in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” at the Gnu Theatre in North Hollywood. Joe Spano and Dennis Christopher co-star in this story of friendship, loyalty, larceny, betrayal and the all-consuming quest for a buffalo-head nickel.

“Donny Dubrow is not terribly great and not terribly awful,” the actor, 45, said. “He’s somewhere in the middle . . . maybe the lower-middle. Hey, I’ve played my share of sleazoliums. You’ve gotta respect them; you don’t condescend to them. ‘Cause people don’t think they’re horrible. I used to have an aunt who had a mustache, and she’d always kiss me at every wedding and funeral. To me, she was horrible. But she was probably a nice lady--although she could’ve used some shaving cream.”

Sitting in the Hollywood home he shares with his wife, Annie, and their two young sons, Costanzo’s easy manner and stream-of-consciousness banter contrasted sharply with “Buffalo’s” hard-edged trio, alternately motivated and paralyzed by a host of savage personal demons.

“For me, the play is about impotence,” he said with emphasis. “Impotence in terms of things never getting done. Like Shakespeare said: a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That’s what these people’s lives are. But to them, what they’re doing is very, very important. And they need each other; they have to have each other’s approval. At the end, after they’ve had all of this weeping and gnashing, tearing up the shop and beating up the kid, the guy says, ‘Are you mad at me?’ ”

As comfortable as he is with the environment (“I grew up in Brooklyn with a lot of these characters, guys selling hot stuff out of the back of their cars”), Costanzo had to adjust to the playwright’s manner of construction and phrasing.

“This play is written very tightly; Mamet has his own music,” he noted. “He inverts things a lot.” The actor slipped into a passage from the show, balancing Mamet’s almost sing-song fluidity with a rapid-fire urban delivery. “We’re trying as hard as we can to get that meter, that rhythm--’cause it’s essential. Every ‘yes,’ every ‘uh-huh’ has a meaning of its own.”

It’s not that Costanzo isn’t used to taking dialogue so seriously. He’s just not used to so much of it.

“I’m what they call a character guy,” he said, “meaning not quite the lead. Maybe the second lead--a big guy who comes in and adds texture. But he’s usually there for a short period of time. So you channel your energy. I’d come on, say something like ‘The building’s burning!’ and go off. In this play, I’m on stage for the whole thing. I have no exits or entrances. It’s like going from a sprint to a marathon. I want to keep myself in there, so my performance stays strong.”

The actor has packed in a lot of work in his relatively short career--including recurring roles in “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “St. Elsewhere.” A former textile salesman, he said it all started after he performed in a company show, and the chairman of the board suggested Costanzo give acting a try. On the train ride home, he spotted a booklet from the Strasberg Studio. Costanzo went in, paid $150, and signed up for classes.

Life changed quickly after that. He quit textiles and began bartending at night, auditioning for acting work by day. “What was good was that I was old enough to get through the rejection and handle the business--’cause it is a business, you know.” He shook his head. “That other life was never for me. I was a salesman who just got by. But acting--it’s like when I played ball as a kid. I love it. Every new job is fun. Even commercials.

“They all present their own problems,” said the actor (whose local stage credits include “Brothers” and “Streamers.”) “To be able to sell something in literally 6.3 seconds-- that’s a challenge. . . . Last week, I was doing a silly Wisk commercial--’Ring around the collar’--then I had to open my guts and do Donny. That’s good. I love mixing it up.

“I don’t make acting very mystical,” he said simply. “It’s just being there . I think the best description is Charles Aznavour’s: ‘I am only a ham; that is all that I am.’ That’s what actors do. We go on a set--and we lie.

“But sure, I like playing introspective characters. We all have lots of people inside of us. You present an image to the world--then people start to expect it, so you accommodate them. I became the clown; I told stories. That’s part of me, a big part. But it’s not all of me. I’ve got a lot more to show.”