‘Philadelphia’ Freedom : Footloose Star of SCR Production Enjoys an Uncluttered Existence

Living out of a suitcase has its compensations. For Lynnda Ferguson, one of the most widely traveled leading ladies of American theater, it means the freedom of an uncluttered existence.

“There’s something lovely about the simplicity of it,” said the tall, blond actress who is starring in “The Philadelphia Story” at South Coast Repertory. “There are no phone calls. You don’t have to deal with the rest of the day-to-day demands of living. The only responsibility you have is to the play you’re in. It’s kind of bohemian.”

Of course, you have to walk the dog--which, in Ferguson’s case, is a miniature schnauzer named Liesel who travels with her everywhere--from the Old Globe in San Diego to the Denver Center Theatre, from Broadway to Berkeley Repertory.

“It does get very lonely on the road,” Ferguson admitted over lunch recently, “but having a dog to come home to at the end of the day makes all the difference in the world.”

Such sentiments hardly square with those of Tracy Lord, the post-debutante divorcee she is playing in Philip Barry’s classic 1939 comedy about Philadelphia high society. Indeed, without her shoulder-length wig of auburn tresses, to say nothing of the swank costumes and the patrician Main Line trappings of the Lord family mansion, Ferguson seems worlds removed from the role.

“I don’t identify with Tracy at all in terms of where she comes from or what her circumstances are,” said Ferguson, a Colorado native who grew up in a suburban mountain town near Denver. “I’m a Midwestern girl. My background is very middle class. My father is a retired pharmacist. But I’m one of those people who think all the women in (dramatic) literature are in me, that as women we all share the same experience to a greater or lesser degree, regardless of the era or the clothes we wear or the schools we went to.”

Ferguson said she understands “the arrogant certainty” of Tracy Lord as well as her “complexity,” just as she understood “the isolation and abandonment” of Olivia in “Twelfth Night” (a role she just completed at SCR) or “the pain, loss and powerlessness” of Lady Anne in “Richard III” (an earlier role opposite Stacy Keach at the Shakespeare at the Folger in Washington, D.C.).

“I can identify with Tracy by recalling the feeling I had as a younger actress, when I thought I knew everything,” Ferguson said. “So I know Tracy. She is full of herself. We all go through that feeling in our early 20s. The world is our oyster. Everything is ours. And then, as you grow up, you get knocked down a little by life. You realize everything isn’t going to be laid out for you.”

More difficult, perhaps, is getting beyond the close identification of the role with Katharine Hepburn. Barry not only wrote “The Philadelphia Story” for Hepburn but also modeled much of the Tracy Lord character on her. Hepburn scored her greatest Broadway triumph in the role and stamped it indelibly on the screen in the 1940 hit movie made from the play.

“I saw the movie years ago when I was a young girl,” Ferguson said. “Hepburn was my idol. The lucky thing for me is that I haven’t seen the movie since then. And I’m so glad I haven’t. I didn’t want to hear her rhythms.”

Nonetheless, during her SCR performance she bears an uncanny resemblance to Hepburn in looks and even in manner. Everything from her lean limbs and high cheekbones to her athletic grace and swaggering glamour underscore a remarkable, though not slavish, similarity.

Ferguson wasn’t always cast as a leading lady. Her first appearance on stage came in a high-school production of “Beauty and the Beast.” But because she was tall for her age and had a low voice, she recalled, “I got to play everybody’s mother,” never the leads and certainly not Beauty.

In her professional career, which began at the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, she has played all sorts of roles: a mute lesbian nun and a naked-winged thought, to name just two from her days at the Berkeley Stage Co.; a bartender in the old daytime TV soap opera “Ryan’s Hope,” and a frog and an Amazon in the West Coast premiere of “The Frogs” by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.

For her first outing on Broadway--in “Bring Back Birdie, the flop 1980 musical sequel to “Bye Bye Birdie”--she played a bombshell reporter from Rolling Stone. “My character didn’t even have a name,” she recalled. “I was Donald O’Connor’s love interest during his character’s midlife crisis.”

It was after she played a hooker in the West Coast premiere of “Working” by Studs Terkel, Ferguson recounted, that she began getting calls to do “every hooker and every bimbo and every ex-porn queen ever written.” While that kind of work improved her finances (she landed TV roles on “The A-Team,” “Remington Steele” and the like), Ferguson decided “it really wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. So I began auditioning for theater again. What I really wanted were the classics: Shaw, Moliere, Shakespeare.”

Leading roles at top regional theaters soon began falling into place: the Countess in “The Marriage of Figaro” at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco; Virgilia in “Coriolanus” at the Old Globe; Roxanne in “Cyrano de Bergerac” at San Jose Repertory; Cheri in “Bus Stop” at Alaska Repertory in Anchorage; the title character in “Major Barbara” at Berkeley Rep, Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific” at Denver Center Theatre.

Recalling the audition for her SCR debut role--Lina Szczepanowska, the downed Polish pilot of Shaw’s “Misalliance”--Ferguson broke into a broad grin. “That one I earned by lifting Martin off the floor,” she said, referring to SCR artistic director Martin Benson, who staged the acclaimed 1987 production.

“She had to throw a man over her shoulder. She’s a real Shavian character. So at the end of the audition Martin said: ‘Oh, there’s one more thing. Can you lift me up?’ Well, I’m strong. I did it. And he said, ‘You’ve got the job.’ ”

These days, because so many regional-theater directors already know her work, Ferguson usually doesn’t have to audition for roles. SCR offered her “The Philadelphia Story” without one. Besides, Tracy Lord doesn’t do much lifting.

“The Philadelphia Story” continues at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Performances Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Through March 29. Tickets: $23 to $32. Information: (714) 957-4033.