Making Another ‘Crossing’

Agood idea is hard to keep down. A perfect example is playwright Tom Stoppard’s high comedy “Rough Crossing,” which opened its West Coast premiere Thursday at Hollywood’s Matrix Theatre.

This new production is directed by Richard Kline, who guided the 1990 hit Los Angeles revival of “Present Laughter.” The cast features familiar stage personalities Bill Cort (remembered for his award-winning performance in “Butley” and his direction of the hit “The Bar Off Melrose”), Ian Abercrombie (last seen onstage locally in “The Vortex”), and Ian Ogilvy (who starred in “Present Laughter” and is known for his own television series “The Saint”).

The play has had its own sort of crossing, from the original Hungarian comedy by Ferenc Molnar--called “Play in the Castle” in Hungarian. Writer P.G. Wodehouse knew a good play when he saw it. His 1926 adaptation, called “The Play’s the Thing,” was a hit, and since then has been successfully revived at least five times on Broadway.

Kline and Cort, who is also producing “Rough Crossing,” were both attracted to Stoppard’s script because, as Kline says, “You’re not dealing with political issues, you’re not dealing with relationship issues. You’re really dealing with the mechanics of comedy. It’s an extremely difficult task, but when it’s working, there’s no greater joy.”

British playwright Stoppard, contacted at his home in London, says he had never heard of the Molnar original when director Peter Wood tried to interest him in making a new adaptation of the work for the National Theatre. This version of the comedy, concerning the frantic completion of a stage play, takes place on a steamer headed for New York.

“I’d never seen any of Molnar’s plays,” says Stoppard. “It was all new to me. It wasn’t a case of my having an enthusiasm for this particular play, then electing to adapt it and then finding a home for it. It came that way, the cart pulling the horse.”

Stoppard, who by his own count has written about nine full-length original plays, says he has adapted about the same number from the European theater. Before this, he and Wood worked together on the highly successful “On the Razzle.”

“We didn’t get ‘Rough Crossing’ as right in London as ‘On the Razzle,’ ” Stoppard admits, although “Crossing” had a respectable run at the National’s Lyttleton Theatre.

The main problem, Stoppard explains, is that he and Wood “rather inflated it. The Molnar play is about people writing a play. This is about some people writing a musical. We had chorus girls and musical numbers, and all that.”

Ogilvy saw the Lyttleton production, and agrees with Stoppard. “The London production,” he says, “was kind of dwarfed by the incredible sets they had. There are only six people in the play, but in London it looked like a D.W. Griffith production. You were looking at the sets and not the actors.”

Stoppard says, “What was truly disappointing, indeed devastating, was that everybody who did it after that did it much better than we did it. It’s quite embarrassing. I keep getting these amazing press cuttings, and keep thinking I should go there and find out what they’ve done.”

Although Stoppard doesn’t consider “Rough Crossing” a farce, Kline says it has “farcical elements, and the opportunity to use physical elements, which I love and have fun directing.”

Cort and Abercrombie play the two playwrights in the story. “I love my character,” Abercrombie says. “He’s full, he’s exciting, he pulls rabbits out of hats.”

Cort, who says he was attracted to the play because of its affinity with other plays, feels the same way. “It has elements that are very funny and very appealing, elements of ‘Private Lives’ and ‘Twentieth Century.’ ”

Ogilvy understands why Stoppard doesn’t think of “Rough Crossing” as a farce. “British farce,” he says, “is girls, dumb policemen, doors opening and shutting and sexual situations. This is really high comedy with farcical elements.”

Director Kline, like Abercrombie’s character, sometimes pulls rabbits out of hats.

In the beginning, none of the three actors realized the extent of the musical elements of the play. There are no chorus girls. Here, the actors sing and dance.

“I swore years ago,” says Ogilvy, “when I realized I couldn’t sing at all, that I would never do another musical. And here I am.”

Abercrombie started in the business as a dancer. “Forty years later,” he says, “I’m in my tap shoes again. But Richard won’t give me a solo number coming down the staircase. That’s all right .”

Cort was more insistent. “I attempted a Noel Coward revue about 10 years ago, and said, ‘That’s it, never again.’ I went to Richard and said, ‘I don’t dance and I don’t sing.’ Richard said, ‘Nonsense, get in the line.’ ”

One has to be versatile in theater, like Stoppard, who made his name with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” He has answered critics who said he didn’t deal with ideas by writing “Jumpers.” He answered critics who said he didn’t deal with relationships by writing “The Real Thing.” But he has a lot of fun just sitting back carving out adaptations.

“It’s not a chore,” Stoppard explains. “Somebody else has provided the story and the characters, which for me is the hard part. I’m left to do what the characters say to each other, which is the part I enjoy most.”

Does “Rough Crossing” exhibit the well-known Stoppard love for intricate wordplay?

Stoppard chuckles over the phone. “I hope you find yourself groaning at the puns, yes.”

“Rough Crossing,” Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays; 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 7. $18.50 to $22.50; (213) 660-8587.