Speaking exclusively for himself

In Richard Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour,” the young 20th century and its possibilities stretch before John Pace Seavering. At 25, just back from the Great War and armed with a Princeton diploma, a patrician’s pedigree and the confidence that comes with class, cash and connections, he sets out to make his mark as a publisher of fine literature.

Hamish Linklater, 26, who plays Seavering in South Coast Repertory’s world premiere production, has a pedigree of his own.

His mother, Kristin Linklater, chairs the graduate theater program at Columbia University; her name is synonymous with a widely used method for training actors to get the most out of their voices.

Hamish was 2 when his Scottish mom co-founded Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass. He grew up surrounded by theater people, and he watched pros do the Bard night after night. By age 8, he was getting Shakespearean child roles; by 19 he was a pro on the regional theater circuit.

“He has this amazing combination of youth and maturity,” Greenberg said from his New York City home. “Actors his age aren’t usually geared to the theater in quite the way he seems to be. I’ve heard people compare him to Jimmy Stewart. He’s in that tradition of likable American intelligence.”

For most of the play -- and he is onstage for all but a few minutes -- Seavering is a trampoline for other characters seeking a bounce. They plead, threaten and stake their very lives on getting him to publish their books. Linklater says his challenge is to register aplomb under pressure, even as a strange intrusion that Rod Serling would have appreciated darkens the mood in Seavering’s manuscript-littered office high above Manhattan.

“He’s going to be a poster boy for the gilded age. He sort of epitomizes that optimism,” Linklater says, his 6-foot, 2-inch frame folded into an orchestra seat in SCR’s new Argyros Stage. “That’s a perfect setup for what happens in the second act, because then he sees all the evidence to the contrary. The tricky part is that you need to hold up the tone of the piece and the character, which is affable and graceful.”

A waggish streak

Deep-voiced and hyper-articulate, Linklater is full of muted chuckles and the occasional husky, hawing donkey laugh. He has enough of a waggish streak to say that the secret to his onstage affability is the big roast beef sandwich and espresso jolt he treats himself to as a pre-curtain ritual. “That keeps me perky and hopefully keeps John Pace perky too.”

He says no Seavering-like indecision ever shadowed his choice of career: “This is always what I loved the most.”

Linklater tried studying English for a year at Amherst College, then lit out for the New York stage. He was accepted at Juilliard and his mother’s alma mater, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. But good parts kept coming, and he decided he would rather act than be schooled to act. Linklater’s on-the-job training during his early 20s included playing Romeo on tour for six months in 1998 with the Acting Company as well as being directed by Peter Hall in “Measure for Measure” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Ahmanson Theatre in 1999, and by Andrei Serban in a 2000 turn as Laertes in “Hamlet” at New York’s Public Theater.

Linklater played a doctor in the short-lived TV series “Gideon’s Crossing” in 2000-2001, which led to his transplantation to L.A. By then he was affianced to playwright Jessica Goldberg (they married in January). Linklater says his connubial rights include parts in everything she writes, including last year’s Taper, Too production of “Good Thing” and “Sex Parasites,” commissioned and recently workshopped by the Mark Taper Forum in its New Work Festival.

Training ‘by osmosis’

One credential Linklater can’t claim is formal training in the Linklater Method.

“Whatever I do have from her, I got by osmosis. I do a bastardized version of her warmup every day before the show. I know the method, but I don’t want to say I’m a representative of it, because if I sound tinny or stupid or lose my voice, I don’t want to reflect badly on my mom.”

Kristin Linklater says there’s no danger of that. “Most actors need training, but he’s developed his own individual natural ability, and if it can happen like that, that’s the most exciting kind of actor. I think our relationship as mother and son is more important than me trying to pull a teacher-authority number on him.”

Hamish says he is not entirely lacking in motherly acting advice: “She’s always very proud of my performances, but after being proud for about a half-hour, she gives me a few notes on my diction and tells me to avoid those cheap moments [of] hammery.”

Landing screen roles is his priority now; he’ll be seen starting Dec. 7 playing reporter Richard Roth in “Live From Baghdad,” a fact-based HBO movie about CNN crews covering the Persian Gulf War. Like many actors, Linklater figures he’ll continue to do theater out of love while emphasizing film and television because that’s where the money is. “If a great play comes around or you get a chance to work with a great director, you jump at it.”

His wife, the Bard and the creator of John Pace Seavering top the list of playwrights whose worlds he wants to keep inhabiting.

“Goldberg, Greenberg and Shakesberg. I want to do the whole canon.”

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‘The Violet Hour’

Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive., Costa Mesa

When: Tuesdays-Sundays, 7:45 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Ends: Nov. 24

Price: $27 to $54

Contact: (714) 708-5555