Director O’Brien Steps Out on Center Stage for ‘Letters’

It’s been 21 years since he last performed on stage, but Jack O’Brien, director, has decided to take a chance on Jack O’Brien, actor, in the Old Globe production of A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters.”

O’Brien, who wears a third hat as artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, plays the part of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, opposite Michael Learned’s Melissa Gardner through Sunday. There will be no performance today.

When told that many people around town have expressed interest in checking out his performance, he laughed.

“There’s a touch of vindictiveness in that, I think,” he said last week as he was preparing for the part. “Now that my parents are dead, I can’t imagine anyone coming to it.”

But come they did, filling the Old Globe main stage to near capacity on a Monday night. It wasn’t the most memorable performance this critic has seen of this love story--the reading was more intelligent and charming than passionate--but the fans applauded loud and long.

The last time O’Brien set foot on stage--in 1969--also was at the Old Globe Theatre. But that was the unplanned result of an accident. The actor hired to play Dromio of Syracuse in “A Comedy of Errors” dropped out suddenly. O’Brien, who was directing the play, knew the part and therefore felt called upon to step in for the actor, performing opposite Christopher Walken, Sada Thompson and Jonathan McMurtry.

It did not seem like such a departure for O’Brien to act at the time. He had considered himself an actor all through his college and early post-college years, he said.

“I had a big singing voice for musical comedy. I thought of myself as a viable commodity until I looked in a mirror and saw my hair going south with my career.”

He also made a discovery about himself during his stint in “A Comedy of Errors.” He was getting the job done--well, as he recalls--but he wasn’t enjoying it.

“I knew how to do it. I knew how to get the laughs. But I was frightened and unhappy, and it wasn’t right for me. I was terrified to go on stage. Every entrance was traumatic. But I love to direct, and I love to watch actors work.”

Still, 21 years has a way of diluting fears, O’Brien said. He was drawn to the material in Gurney’s “Love Letters” in much the same way he was drawn to the playwright’s “The Cocktail Hour,” which O’Brien directed in 1988, and the upcoming “The Snow Ball,” which he will direct in 1991. O’Brien said that putting himself in an actor’s shoes tests “those instincts I’m operating from in terms of supporting actors.”

And, most importantly, he was looking forward to having a good time.

“I’m older, more experienced, and I know what I am and what I can do and what I can’t do. I don’t think anyone is taking this seriously. It’s Jack’s big adventure. I just hope it’s Jack’s excellent adventure.”