Playwright-Actor Transmutes a Painful Time Into a Funny, Profane Play

She clobbers him. He bites her. She pours hot water over his head. He slashes his wrist and flicks the blood on a qcanvas he’s painting. She reads. He stomps on broken glass. She sneers. He screams. She has another cup of tea.

Such is life in the very personal landscape of Raymond J. Barry’s semi-autobiographical play, “Once in Doubt,” at the Cast-at-the-Circle Theatre in Hollywood. It is an arty, self-conscious and unabashedly profane study of an artist’s obsessive relationship with his work, his lady and the quizzical neighbor who wanders into their love/hate nest.

“There are some nights when the audience howls with laughter when I start making a collage out of my own blood,” said the playwright, who co-stars in the production with Kim O’Kelley and Harvey Perr. “I love it when they laugh--because it is funny. But the point is, I know where that idea came from. I went through that pain.”

The product of a self-described “dysfunctional family” (both parents were alcoholics), Barry, 49, remembers himself as a young overachiever, a “serious jock” who majored in philosophy at Brown University--and upon graduation, found himself drafted by the New England Patriots and accepted at the Yale Drama School. He chose Yale, but soon found that acting was a bumpy ride.

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At 24, a bottomless anxiety attack sent Barry reeling. He taught high school, then worked as a longshoreman. He immersed himself in drawing, painting and sculpture. But by 1968, he was touring Europe as part of Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theatre.

Back in New York, he co-directed the Puerto Rican Writer’s Workshop with the late Miguel Pinero. He also appeared in more than 75 stage productions, picking up two Obie awards--for “Leaf People” and “Molly’s Dream.”

His most recent role was Tom Cruise’s father in the upcoming Oliver Stone-directed film, “Born on the Fourth of July,” the story of disabled veteran/war protester Ron Kovic.

“You get so saturated with the subject matter,” the actor said wearily. “I’m glad to get away from that experience. I can’t even read about it now. It was a real heavy-duty trip. But politically, it was very important to me. I’ve never been in a film so important.

“I’m not your typical film actor,” he said. “I came here for whatever reasons. It began to get crazy in New York. I needed money. I was evicted from my loft.”

Although he once turned down roles in 13 consecutive plays he “didn’t love,” he said yes to Michael Cimino’s 1985 film “Year of the Dragon”--and later, “Dragon” co-writer Oliver Stone remembered the actor for “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Other Barry credits include the crooked cop chasing Anthony Michael Hall in “Out of Bounds,” an evil senator in “Three for the Road” with Charlie Sheen, and “the bad guy” in the Eric Roberts made-for-cable film “Slow Burn.”

Barry makes no apologies for his commercial detour. “One day you turn around and you’re 40, and you’re broke,” he said. “And you think, ‘Hey, maybe I should make some bread.’ ” In 1985, he moved to a duplex in the Fairfax district--and has been living happily ever after.

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“See how quiet this place is,” he said, gesturing to the art- and sculpture-filled room around him. “I’ve done all these drawings since I’ve been here. I’ve done books and books of writing. You know why? Because I can isolate here. Nobody cares about you; you just kind of fit into your little cubbyhole. Of course, you have to hustle for work, but in a modest kind of way.”

Barry continued, “The most I ever made in New York was $27,000. Last year, I made 150 grand. I did a TV series, ‘The Oldest Rookie,’ with Paul Sorvino. It was lousy, it stunk, it was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, but,” he said with a laugh, “I made a hundred grand doing it. What can I tell you?

“I’m old enough, so I don’t take it all so seriously,” Barry said. “But the fact is, I am serious--maybe too serious. I know I’m contradicting myself. I’m serious about all the work I do. That’s the honest truth. It doesn’t matter what it is. And that gets in my way. ‘Cause I’ll do something like ‘Oldest Rookie’ and try to make it work--and there’s no substance in the material. And I’ll end up frustrated, whipping myself, unhappy.”

Now, looking at his 50th birthday, Barry (who has a 16-year-old daughter, Oona, by an earlier marriage) says he has come to terms with his actor’s life. “Theater is my metaphor for learning and experiencing this thing we call life,” he said. “I could’ve been a painter or a writer or a football coach, but this is what I chose. And I take everything that comes with it.”

The pain that’s all-too-evident in the play, Barry added, is long past. “I took me six years to write that,” he said. “I started writing those scenes between the man and the woman in the aftermath of breaking up with a woman I had been living with. But all this happened a long time ago. So sometimes now I feel that I’ve outgrown it. I wrote it, choreographed it; I’m acting in it. But to some degree, it’s a past life.”

Still, Barry allows, some aspects remain. “I feel different from most people,” he said. “There’s something that makes me . . . different. I have a very high threshold for pain. I know I went through a lot. And I have it in my mind to produce some statement about myself. I don’t care if it’s a drawing, painting, sculpture or play. It’s like ‘Hey, everyone, this is my life. Come on over, the joke’s on me.’ ”