TV’s Beast Returns to the Stage to Flex Some Theatrical Muscle at Odyssey

Poor ratings killed the beast.

Now he’s back as “The Westwood Strangler.”

Ron Perlman, who portrayed Vincent in CBS-TV’s “Beauty and the Beast,” until its cancellation last year, has resurfaced on stage in the new dark comedy “Self Storage” at the Odyssey Theatre.

He wanted to play the slimy Hollywood agent or the upstart producer in this spoof of the film industry. Instead, director Dan Lauria (the father on “Wonder Years”) gave him the part of Cliff, an unsuccessful actor masquerading as a serial killer.

“I don’t think I would have done the play without Ron,” Lauria said. “I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role. You needed someone who could make a joke out of the role. Otherwise, the audience doesn’t get it.”

Cliff is a scary sight, with his scruffy beard and staggering gait--a far cry from elegant Vincent. Perlman adores him anyway.

“I find I’m really starting to dig him,” Perlman said. “I didn’t dig him at first, but . . . I understand him now. I’m going to wind up loving him by the time it’s over.”

In Cliff, Perlman sees a part of himself--the struggling, victimized actor. That seems like a strange comment from a man who has attained more fame and earned more money than he ever imagined. He has worked three years on a television series, acted in several feature films (“Quest for Fire,” “The Name of the Rose”), received two Emmy nominations and won the 1988 Golden Globe Award for best actor in a dramatic series.

At 40, Perlman retains the actor’s insecurities. “This part scared me. I really didn’t think I’d be able to come up with what it took to play the role,” he said.

He recalled thinking, “They’re going to find me out; I’m going to stink out the joint.”

On the other hand, he doesn’t worry as much anymore about audience reaction, he said. Before, when he didn’t give his best performance, Perlman used to eat--a lot.

“I’ve spent 22 years acting for other people,” he said. “Now, I’m getting so old that I don’t care. It doesn’t destroy me if people don’t like it. I work for my friends, and I figure if me and my friends like it, then maybe other people will, too. It’s a tremendously liberating period for an artist.”

Time also has liberated Perlman. Free from the rigorous schedule of a weekly television series, he is able to pursue other acting possibilities. “It’s nice to move on, nice to know I can flex other muscles,” he said.

He blames no one for the beast’s demise. He thinks someday there might be a feature film based on the show’s characters.

“We were always teetering on the edge of acceptability,” Perlman said, “and then we teetered the wrong direction. I’m surprised at the tremendous success that the show had. I liked it. I liked all the things I was involved in, but none of them made money.”

In “Self Storage,” Perlman is working for almost no pay. The production is the second installment of a four-play series sponsored by Patchett-Kaufman Entertainment to develop projects that might be turned into sitcoms or movies.

Perlman said that although he applauds PKE’s efforts to produce high-quality theater--Lauria essentially runs the project--he has a little trouble with the concept: “The purpose of it is crossover, the fact we’re doing theater that might have an afterlife. . . . I’m doing this because I think it’s a funny play.”

Perlman complains that pure theater is dying out. “People are doing sitcoms on stage rather than theater. You go to a theater, and it’s as if you were watching a sitcom at 8:30 on Channel 4.”

Asked whether “Self Storage” might contain some of the same sitcom material he loathes, Perlman said: “There’s satire in it, which is a much more sophisticated form than pure sitcom.”

Perlman said he thought moving from television to theater would be more difficult but that he has relied on his stage experience to ease the transition. He has performed on and off Broadway, playing the lead in the New York premieres of “The Architect” and “The Emperor of Assyria.” He has also performed the works of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, Pinter and Beckett.

Finding Cliff, he said, has been tougher than playing most characters. Usually, when assuming a role, Perlman tries to find an actual person to model himself after or part of the fictional character within himself. For “Self Storage,” he went for the theatrics first and adapted Cliff to that. Much of his role is physical--stumbling across stage, speaking occasionally in grunts, staring like a ferocious beast.

“You have to find what it is in that person that you love in order to play him,” Perlman said, “no matter how psychotic he is.”

“Self Storage” plays at 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday through May 27 at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Ticket prices are $15 Thursdays and Sundays; $17.50 Fridays and Saturdays. A special discount ticket of $10 is available to senior citizens and students. For information, call (213) 477-2055.