Theater : Plenty of ‘Icebergs’ but No Obstacles : From His Earliest Acting Forays to His Current SCR Role, Robert Curtis-Brown Has Been a Critical Success

Will somebody please pinch Robert Curtis-Brown? He can’t seem to get a bad notice, whatever the role.

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Last season at South Coast Repertory, a Times reviewer singled out his “dynamic performance” as a sharp congressional investigator in “Night and Her Stars.”

At the Matrix Theatre in West Hollywood two seasons ago, “his charm and comic timing make the evening,” another Times reviewer wrote of his inarticulate Everyman in “One of Those Days.”

Four seasons ago at Hollywood’s Doolittle Theatre, still another noted that his gay pediatrician in “The Heidi Chronicles” was “the most whole” of the play’s chief characters.”

Now he’s bringing down the house in “Green Icebergs,” a fascinating new play on the SCR Mainstage, as a glib, facetious sports addict whose wife jilts him during their Italian vacation.

“I read the script and thought, ‘Wow! I love this character,’ ” the Yale-trained actor said in a recent interview at the Costa Mesa theater. “My hit on Claude was immediate.”

What appealed to him was the character’s combination of sardonic intelligence and emotional vulnerability and, not least, his flippant repartee. (Claude’s take on life in Southern California? “Sun, space, lots of lane changes.”)

“He’s full of wonderful remarks,” Curtis-Brown continued. “I think of them as ‘Claudisms.’ But you have to remember, all that funny stuff of his comes from a very real insecurity.”

In fact, serious issues emerge between bright shafts of laughter throughout “Green Icebergs.” The play as a whole treats questions of marriage, loyalty, love and betrayal with beguiling wit, like a Noel Coward comedy for the nasty ‘90s.

“So many California plays are about trashing Hollywood and the shallowness of the movie industry,” Curtis-Brown said. “It’s nice that this play does not do that. It deals with some pretty substantive subjects.”

Curtis-Brown, 37, was not supposed to become an actor. Born and raised in the Philadelphia suburbs, he loved doing theater in high school and ran the drama club. But he went off to Yale thinking he’d become a lawyer because “that was the sensible thing to do.”

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In his freshman year, however, he played the budding poet in an extracurricular production of “Ah! Wilderness.” Even then his notices were good.

“The director thought I should be introduced to some professional people,” he recalled. “So I auditioned for ‘Equus’ in New York and had five callbacks.”

This was to play the role of the disturbed adolescent opposite Richard Burton as the psychiatrist.

“They sent me for voice lessons with a coach from the Metropolitan Opera. I started fantasizing: ‘Do I leave Yale and move to New York to become an actor at 18? Or do I stay in school?’ ”

Curtis-Brown’s dilemma was solved when the director finally cut him.

“They decided I was too tall for Burton.”

But by then it had dawned on him that acting might be more than a hobby. He switched from pre-law to theater studies and literature and on graduation was accepted at the Yale School of Drama.

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Again, good notices changed his life--this time at Yale Repertory as the male ingenue in “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” one of the play’s two major roles for young actors.

“It was my third year in drama school and the first production of the season,” Curtis-Brown said. “So right out of the gate I had this showcase, and I decided to take advantage of it.”

He sent letters to a dozen agents inviting them to the show. Three wanted to sign him after seeing his performance. Before he finished school he not only had representation, he had his first professional job playing Lysander in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre.

Three weeks after moving to New York he landed a role in “Plenty” at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Two days after Curtis-Brown joined the company, the producers announced that “Plenty” was moving to Broadway. On top of that, he landed his first movie, “Trading Places,” playing the preppy stockbroker who gets Dan Aykroyd’s girlfriend.

“So I had two jobs,” he said. “I shot the movie during the day with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy and worked in the theater at night with Kate Nelligan and Ed Herrmann. Actors struggle so hard to distinguish themselves from the pack. When I look back at what came my way, I feel incredibly lucky.”

The catch, of course, is that even a lucky start right out of the gate doesn’t make you a household name.

“The idea of fame just floats along,” said Curtis-Brown, who moved to Los Angeles “for the TV and movie possibilities.”

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Great notices, however, don’t guarantee steady work.

“It goes in streaks,” he said. “There was a period a year or so ago when I did something like 11 TV shows in 13 weeks--’L.A. Law,’ ‘Sisters,’ ‘Murphy Brown,’ ‘Love and War.’ Then there are times when things seem to hit a brick wall, and you feel it’s over.”

What keeps him coming back to the theater? The intellectual challenge of the stage draws him, he said, and the visceral kick of live performance.

“Movies and television are all about images. Theater is about language and ideas. I get a thrill from doing ‘Green Icebergs.’ It’s so funny and so smart.”

* “Green Icebergs,” by Cecilia Fannon, continues through Nov. 20 on the Mainstage at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesday-Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. $26-$36. (714) 957-4033.