Frank’s ‘Life’ Changes

What does Gary Frank call 26 scenes--and 25 costume changes--in 83 minutes?

“ Extremely complicated,” says the actor, who’s playing opposite Bruce Kirby in “A Life in the Theatre” (at the Gnu Theatre in North Hollywood), David Mamet’s two-character comedy of different-generation thespians sharing a summer-stock dressing room. “Mamet has not put any indication in the text of what he’d like--other than what is inherent in the words. It’s easy to write on Page 3, ‘World War I breaks out,’ but it’s very difficult to (stage) it.”

Also difficult is the characters’ relationship, traced in a series of off- and on-stage encounters--playing an array of cowboys, sailors, surgeons, soldiers and businessmen.

“This is not a play about two people who don’t like each other,” stresses Frank, who never went the summer-stock route himself. “But it’s like a lot of relationships--it only exists because of the circumstances.” Off stage, he admits to not fighting the younger guy/older guy dynamic with Kirby: “I respect him as an actor, he respects me as an actor; we’re peers and equals on that level. But I do regard him in a parental sense. And I think that works for the play.”

The actor (who met Gnu artistic director Jeff Seymour last May in South Carolina, where they were filming the upcoming TV movie “Unspeakable Acts”) is less sanguine about his eternally youthful looks.

“I’m 39,” says Frank, who won a supporting-actor Emmy playing 20-ish Willie Lawrence on the ABC series “Family” (1976-81).

“And yeah, looking younger hurts you. Everybody keeps saying, ‘It’ll pay off later in life.’ But I tell you, I’m there . I’m almost 40--and I don’t want to look this young. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t play kids anymore; kids play kids better than I could. I have an adult sensibility now, and it’s a different thing.”