Thanks to David Mamet, Women Will Get ‘A Life’

Women have lives in the theater, too.

Four women will play the roles in David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theatre” in benefit readings slated for next month--apparently the first time women have taken these roles in a public performance.

Mamet’s play depicts two men--an older actor and a younger one--as their relationship evolves from mentor and apprentice to equals and rivals, during the course of a theatrical season.

Concetta Tomei and Dana Delany, both of “China Beach” fame, will play the roles June 8 at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood.

Piper Laurie and Judith Ivey will read the play on June 29 at the Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood.

The readings are sponsored by Incline, a theater company that hopes to use the proceeds to finance a school tour of its next production, “Raft of the Medusa,” as part of an AIDS education effort next fall.

Director John Prosky said the readings will include a few changed lines. In one play-within-the play, the characters are soldiers, but the women won’t be placed specifically in World War I, as they were in the original; references to “the Hun,” for example, will be deleted. So perhaps the audience can imagine that Tomei and Delany, at least, are still in “China Beach.”

Another play-within-the-play, about a love triangle, will require changes in the lines about who’s been impregnated by whom.

Mamet, who’s generally regarded as a better writer for men, approved the readings and the concept of women in the roles, said a spokeswoman for the playwright.

If the casting sounds too non-traditional, you can see men playing the parts, as part of the same series, including John Prosky and his father, Robert Prosky, this Monday at the Hudson, Jack Lemmon and Robert Picardo on June 15 at the Coast, and Peter Reckell with an actor yet to be announced, June 22 at the Coast.

CAL REP WATCH: Bill Bushnell is beginning to make an imprint on the programming at Cal Rep, the professional company based at Cal State Long Beach, where he now assists Artistic Director Howard Burman.

Bushnell, former artistic director of Los Angeles Theatre Center, is bringing in Ron Leibman and Jessica Walter, the couple who starred in a memorable “Tartuffe” at LATC in 1986, to do Moss Hart’s “Light Up the Sky” at Cal Rep next February. They’ll be the first names with theater marquee value to appear at Cal Rep under the auspices of its “Guest Artist” program, which Bushnell now heads.

Bushnell will direct the first show of the season, the West Coast premiere of Dylan Thomas’ “The Doctor and the Devils,” which will play in repertory with Sidney Michaels’ “Dylan” next fall in the 250-seat Studio Theatre.

Closing the season will be a new adaptation of Lee K. Abbott’s novella “Living After Midnight” next spring. The Hart and Abbott works are scheduled for the group’s 99-seat theater.

Bushnell is also importing another familiar face from the LATC company, actor Gregory Wagrowski.

This will be the first Cal Rep season without a play by Artistic Director Howard Burman. Burman, who denied that he had ever taken any flak for scheduling his own plays, said that it was simply time to take a break, after writing seven shows in seven years.

A PRIVATE VIEW: If you were thinking of getting a sneak preview of “Perestroika” this weekend, forget it.

The long-awaited second part of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” which will be seen on the Taper mainstage in a full production next fall, had been scheduled for a public workshop this weekend at the Taper, Too. But the plan was changed; a private, invitation-only workshop was held at the Taper Annex last week in place of the public workshop.

Producer Corey Beth Madden said the change of plans was not due to any concern about the progress of the piece: “Things are wonderful, the piece is in great shape.”

She said that it was simply felt that the workshop would be “very process-oriented,” that “it wasn’t clear if it would be something we wanted anyone to see.”