THEATER : Fair Is Foul, Foul Is Fair for Birney : Actor Haunted by Demanding, Conflicted Role of ‘Macbeth,’ Now at GroveShakespeare

Interviewing David Birney, who is starring in “Macbeth” at the Festival Amphitheatre in Garden Grove, is like trying to hail an express train. He rarely stops talking, even to answer a question.

In a great rush of words, he subscribes to the notion that Shakespeare’sdarkest tragedy is not an actor’s jinx. Contrary to the old thespian superstition that it must never be mentioned by title, Birney ignores that arch traditional substitute, “the Scottish play,” and refers to it by name without the slightest hesitation.

“To do ‘Macbeth,’ ” he declares, “is a gift.”

Yet even he has doubts about how much of a gift. “It’s hard to see what’sredeeming about the piece,” he volunteered the other day over soup and a sandwich. “It doesn’t have the same redeeming arc that the other tragedies have, that ‘Hamlet’ has, that ‘Romeo and Juliet’ has.

“It’s a deeply despairing play,” he added. “I think it’s a deeply religiousplay. It’s about loss of grace. It’s like what Twain wrote at the end of his life, when he had given up, after his wife had died.”

It’s also a very physical play and brutal to rehearse--particularly under ablistering sun at GroveShakespeare’s outdoor amphitheater. “I have a good amount of hair,” said Birney, fingering his scalp. “But for the first time in my life I’ve got a sunburn up here.”

Without Macbeth’s warrior costume--an over-the-shoulder tunic and a leather chest protector--Birney does not look sufficiently imposing to play the fighting general whose ferocity in combat is described in epic terms. Clad in shorts and a light shirt, the Washington-born actor, 53, gives the impression of a fit welterweight groomed to hirsute perfection with a clipped beard etched against his hollow cheeks.

Perhaps more to the point is whether Birney, as an actor focused on a television career, can live up to the demands of the stage role, psychologically or artistically. No character in the Shakespeare canon explores the power of evil as palpably as Macbeth, who is caught up in a tale of vaulting ambition, bloody murders and ensuing madness.

“That’s an interesting question,” Birney noted, eager to put it to rest. “This play has haunted me for years. I’ve had opportunities to do it before, but I never did. I looked at the play as a puzzle for a long time. It’s very mysterious. Very hard. I circled around it. I just didn’t feel ready to attack it. Now I do.”

He remarked with considerable pride, moreover, that he is something of a Shakespeare veteran, despite an extensive TV career that began in 1972 with a sitcom (“Bridget Loves Bernie”) and has continued with an array of dramatic series (“Serpico,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Glitter”), miniseries (“Masters of the Game,” “Night of the Fox”) and made-for-TV movies (“Keeping Secrets,” “Love and Betrayal”).

Birney has played Hamlet three times, although not recently--the last time was seven years ago in Solvang at the Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts. He has played Romeo as well as Mercutio in different productions of “Romeo and Juliet” and the title roles in “Richard III” and “Richard II.” In addition, he has had classical roles on Broadway (Jack Tanner in George Bernard Shaw’s “Man and Superman” and Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus”).

The son of an FBI agent, Birney grew up near Cleveland, graduated from Dartmouth College and took his master’s degree in theater arts at UCLA. He started out on the classical stage as an understudy at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1967, following his first professional season at the Barter Theatre in Virginia.

“Three days before the opening of ‘The Comedy of Errors,’ (producer) Joe Papp came to me and said you’re Antipholus of Syracuse,” Birney recalled of his New York debut. “It was a very sweet leading character to play because the character doesn’t know what’s going on and I didn’t either.”

That season for Papp, Birney also played in “King John” and, with Raul Julia, was one of the evil sons in “Titus Andronicus.”

His role in “Macbeth” came about originally through Joan Van Ark, the former “Knots Landing” star who is playing Lady Macbeth. The two got to know each other in 1990 while working on a made-for-TV movie, “Always Remember I Love You.” When Grove director Jules Aaron tapped Van Ark for a celebrity benefit to raise funds for the theater last summer, she suggested he invite Birney as well.

“I did the benefit and I was very touched by the community,” Birney said. “Maybe it sounds corny, but this town reminds me a lot of where I grew up in the Midwest. It has lot of the same ambience. A theater like the Grove can make a difference.”

For its part, the Grove was so taken with Birney that it agreed to revive his adaptation of Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” which has been done on public television’s “American Playhouse.” Birney and Van Ark were to star in a Grove production of “Diaries” last spring. But the project fell through when he went off to Europe instead to make “Judith Krantz’s Secrets,” a TV soap of 65 half-hour episodes to air there this fall. (No American broadcast is scheduled.)

Mutual admiration and artistic aspirations notwithstanding, Birney’s involvement in “Macbeth” came down to family needs. In the wake of his divorce from TV actress Meredith Baxter Birney, he wanted to stay close to home this summer in Santa Monica, where he lives with their two youngest children.

Like a typically doting dad, Birney pulled a pair of photos from his wallet. They showed an attractive girl and boy, both towheaded. “Twins,” he said with affection. “They’ll be 8 in October.”

Ironically, the gesture could not have been more alien to the role he is playing. Of all Macbeth’s crimes--among them the murder of a king and the assassination of a friend--probably the most reprehensible in this production is the ordered execution of two children.

“It’s a dark play,” Birney reiterated, pocketing his photos. “Very, very dark.”

* “Macbeth” continues at GroveShakespeare’s Festival Amphitheatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove, Wednesdays through Sundays at 8:30 p.m. through Aug. 29. $18 to $25. (714) 636-7213.