Directing Women : Dorothy Lyman has been through some rough times recently, but don’t count out the 44-year-old actress-director

Dorothy Lyman is coming back.

In January, 1990, her syndicated TV series “Mama’s Family” was canceled. Her 3-year-old labor of love, A Directors’ Theatre, had always been a money-loser, and she was finally forced to pull the plug last year. After she spent a month directing and appearing in the NBC soap opera “Generations,” it too was canceled. In February, her radical staging of “Hedda Gabler”--with Hedda as an Asian, drug-addicted bisexual--was roundly panned at East West Players.

Count Lyman down, but not out. Poised to direct a production of Denis Spedaliere’s “Vicious” (which opened this weekend at The Complex in Hollywood), the 44-year-old actress-director makes no bones about the emotional toll the past few years have taken.

“When I started the theater I thought it was going to become self-supporting really quick,” she said wryly. “I thought everyone was going to say, ‘Hey, this is just what we need in Hollywood: another tiny little theater that does new plays and doesn’t care if they’re commercial as long as they’re interesting.’ ” She sighed. “You put all this money and effort into doing theater, and there are 12 people in the audience on Thursday or Sunday. It’s just heartbreaking.”

Consequently, for this theatrical outing, Lyman has come on strictly as a hired gun (“I promised my husband I wouldn’t spend any more of my money producing theater”), directing a project with a proven track record--specifically, her own successful 1984 production at 2nd Stage. “Denis is my favorite playwright,” she said. “And this is the only play that’s ever come across my desk that need nothing done to it: no rewrites, no cuts or changes. ‘Vicious’ was perfect.”

Likewise, Spedaliere is a big fan of Lyman’s. “I consider Dorothy my director,” said the playwright, in town last weekend to look in on rehearsals. “I’ve only come back to this because she’s directing. I’ve had other offers to do the show, but I turned them down. Dorothy is really a writer’s director. She respects the written word; her concern is always for the play.”

The drug-soaked tale of ill-fated rocker Sid Vicious and his girlfriend-manager Nancy Spungeon (also the subject of Alex Cox’s film “Sid and Nancy”) is undeniably dark, set in a seedy hotel room the night of Spungeon’s 1979 death. “At first,” Lyman said, “I thought, ‘I already directed this play. I still remember every frame of it, every line. What’s the challenge?’ But it’s been endlessly fascinating to see how my perspective has changed.”

Before, she said, “I used to think Sid and Nancy were very romantic; now I think they’re kind of sad. Punks were a lot like the hippies of my time, so I think I related a lot to these kids, ‘cause I’d had a kind of funky past in New York in the late ‘60s. When this case first came out, I was fascinated, read everything about it--and related very personally to the story. But I’ve changed a lot since I first directed it. I’ve had another kid, been through my career ups and downs.”

It’s not a subject Lyman ducks. “I am, in my humble opinion, underemployed as an actress--after 22 years and a couple of Emmy awards,” she said, eyeing the twin statues she won playing Opal Gardner on ABC’s soap “All My Children.” (She good-humoredly refers to the daytime series--in which she appeared from 1981 to 1983--as “All My Kids” or “All My Paychecks.”)

“It’s not easy for me to get a job as an actress or a director--which is why I end up having to produce projects myself most of the time,” added Lyman, who’s now prepping to direct a Mary Ramos piece at Theatre/Theater and who teaches at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. “I am not overwhelmed with offers. Yes, writers want me. But it’s difficult to find people who’re going to pony up the dough for you to experiment with a script that may or may not have legs.”

It was after closing her theater--”and licking my wounds for a couple of months”--that Lyman began pursuing her Directors Guild card last year. “I observed on ‘Generations’ from August to October,” she said, “then they gave me a shot at directing in early November.” One day she heard about a character they were planning to introduce, a hard-boiled businesswoman named Rebecca Whitmore. “I told the producer, ‘That sounds like me.’

“He said, ‘You don’t want to go on a soap.’ I said, ‘Hey, I have three children, and we like to eat. If there’s a job on a soap, I’m not too proud to take it.’ ” With the show’s subsequent cancellation, Lyman found herself back at square one. “It took me four months to get into that position--on a show where the producer was an old friend of mine and knew what I was worth,” she said glumly. “I’ve got to get more ambitious, ‘cause nothing happens if you sit home and wait for your agent to call. I should just develop a half-hour sitcom with a great part for a 44-year-old woman.”

Much of the actress’s current restlessness is no doubt a response to years of steady, plentiful work.

Just months after debuting on “All My Children,” Lyman was approached by “AMC” fan Carol Burnett to co-star in her new series “Mama’s Family.” For the next 1 1/2 years, Lyman taped “AMC” in New York Mondays through Wednesdays, caught the red-eye to Los Angeles on Wednesday nights, rehearsed “Mama’s Family” Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, taped Sundays, caught a plane back to New York, was picked up at the airport each Monday morning and driven straight to the “AMC” set.

“It wasn’t so bad,” she said lightly. “You fly first class--and happily, I can sleep on airplanes.” At the same time, Lyman was also balancing an intercontinental marriage to Frenchman Vincent Malle, whose producing credits include brother Louis’ films “My Dinner With Andre” and “Atlantic City.” In 1975, during a 1 1/2-year hiatus from “Mama’s Family,” she gave birth to their son Jackson.

Born in Minneapolis to what she calls “perfectly ordinary parents”--a stockbroker and a housewife--Lyman discovered acting at 15, when she played a small part in her brother’s church-basement production of “The Skin of Our Teeth.” “I came out and said my first line, and everybody laughed. It was like this great warm feeling of approval, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to have some more of that in my life.’ So I really became an actress at 15, and never wavered from that.”

Two years into studies at Sarah Lawrence College, she quit and headed for New York; there she quickly became a member of Joseph Chaikin’s legendary Open Theatre, playing in “America Hurrah” off-Broadway: “I was also lucky to get a little part on the soap ‘Search for Tomorrow,’ making what seemed like an enormous amount of money then--$90 a week.” More stage work followed (including an abortive London run of “Shrivings” with John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller), and a series of soaps, including a 1976-80 stint on “Another World.”

While she was pursuing her career, Lyman also had two children (her daughter’s now 19, her son 16); when she divorced her first husband, they stayed with him. It’s a whole different story with her 5 1/2-year-old. “When you have kids late in life, I think you’re a more patient parent,” the actress said. “When I had the big kids, I was young and ambitious, and it all seemed like a big interruption. Now I wish I’d had six kids, ‘cause frankly, it’s not the roles you’ve played that are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with you or having you over at Christmastime.”