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Actress has shown her range at the Public Theatre

Friday, October 25, 2002

By Christopher Rawson Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Deirdre Madigan has played three very different leads at Public Theater -- the sweet, hapless title role in "Betty's Summer Vacation" (2000), confused academic in "Spinning into Butter" (2001) and, now, the witty, passionate Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing."

	Deirdre Madigan and Doug Harmsen in a "Much Ado About Nothing" that aims for clarity. (Suellen Fitzsimmons)

"I'm fooling somebody, I guess," she jokes -- a characteristic flippancy. She's a thoughtful professional for whom Beatrice doesn't seem that much of a stretch.

She loves the role. "She's awfully fun to do. And I love her because she's the first woman Shakespeare let talk like a man without putting her in pants." The best of "Much Ado" is that "people leave happy. I'm shocked by how many say, surprised, 'I understood it!' "

Madigan understands that feeling, having felt incomprehension at Shakespeare herself. She admires the way director Ted Pappas cut the text, removing those "odd references where you just have to have faith and think, 'OK, I'll say it, just let it fly' " -- hoping somebody will have some idea what it means.

"Betty's Summer Vacation," the surreal and somewhat shocking Christopher Durang comedy about the summer time-share from hell, was a different matter. The imp in Madigan found it fun to shock people, to stir them up. "I'd look out in the audience and see someone with that look on their face like, 'I can't believe I'm watching this,' while the person next to them would be doubled over with laughter, and I'd think, 'You won't be here in Act 2.' "

Madigan grew up in New Canaan, Conn., though she says her family wasn't among the rich that flourish in that affluent suburb. Nor did they introduce her to theater. Her interest began late in high school -- "I was a jock [swimming] until then." But she got hooked working on a play backstage, and then, a familiar story, she had "two fabulous English teachers who were real theater buffs."

She went first to a junior college in Massachusetts that had a good theater program. "I was a big frog in a small pool, which was probably better for me than a large university." Next came a larger pool, the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York; then the largest pool, New York itself.

Though she had a good introduction in being chosen for the one-year performing company of AADA grads, her early years were rough. "It was hard for me because I was never an ingenue, I was always a character ... [pause] actress, I mean" -- though she means she's something of a character, too.

So after about three years, she called her mother to say she was going to quit. But she was shocked to hear, "Why don't you try before you give up?" And two weeks later she got an acting job that soon led to better things.

Now she lives in the Bronx with a Welsh corgi, who is with her in Pittsburgh for the duration, and her husband, actor Ross Bickell, who was so good as the Friar in Pappas' "Romeo and Juliet" (2001).

Madigan and Bickell met doing the tour of "A Few Good Men," and they once played husband and wife in "The Lady and the Clarinet," where, she says, "I almost divorced him. It's a dog of a part for a woman -- she's on stage the whole time -- but he came on for the last scene and stole the show. It was really unfair!" Once he played her father. "I was delighted, but he took it hard."

Are there any roles she dreams of? "Eventually I'd love to do Martha in 'Virginia Woolf' -- she's sort of Beatrice gone mad."

Madigan says regional work is better than off-Broadway, "especially in a facility that's beautiful, with an outstanding production staff and management." She means the Public, of course. Might she be back? Her eyes sparkle. "I don't want to get greedy. It's been great working with Ted ... and I'm saying that so I can get more work," she says -- laughing and meaning it too.

"Much Ado" has five performances left, through Sunday; call 412-316-1600.

More on 'Much Ado'

To prepare to interview Deirdre Madigan, I gave myself the treat of a second visit to "Much Ado About Nothing," finding it just as friendly, fluid and accessible as I reported in my Oct. 5 review. But there's another dimension worth noting.

In the "Much Ado" program, Kyle Brenton makes his debut as the Public's new dramaturg with a program essay on "Taking Note of Nothing." In it, he discusses the apparent offhandedness of the play's title -- this is a social comedy "about nothing" in much the same sense as "Seinfeld" -- but then explores its "pun that unlocks the entire structure of the play." This, he says, is the Elizabethan homonym of "nothing" and "noting" -- that is, taking note. Brenton neatly compares the false noting that does in Claudio and Hero with that which reveals truths about Beatrice and Benedick.

But you never go far in Shakespeare without encountering a sexual pun, as well, and Brenton doesn't mention the other pun in the title which unlocks another large area of the play's meaning. The "nothing" of which much ado is made refers also to female sexuality, as in nothing = zero = the female symbol (in contrast to the phallic male symbol). If that offends you as English teacher arcana, you can take an easier route to the same point by noting that the specific "nothing" of which so very much is made in the story is Hero's virginity.

This is a long way around to the obvious point that "Much Ado About Nothing" has a lot to do with sex. War is over, the young men come home, and dalliance blossoms. Without denying the ebullience and charm of Pappas' "Much Ado" and its lovely clarity, it doesn't do much with that sexiness. Some of the bawdy puns are still there, but it is never Pappas' style to dwell on this earthy, fertility ritual side of the comedy. And as far as I could tell, his cuts in Shakespeare's text, while sensible and usually designed to remove passages difficult to understand, also remove further sexy talk about brothels and cuckolding.

Gone especially is some of Margaret's bawdy banter with Beatrice and a suggestive encounter with Benedick at a time you might expect she'd be asking forgiveness for her sex escapade that's caused such trouble. Margaret's sexy presence is purposely curtailed.

Of course, Pappas also cuts the Friar's suggestion that if Hero really has strayed, she can be shut up in some convent. Cuts are inevitable. What strikes me is the connection with Pappas' "Romeo and Juliet," which wasn't very sexy, either. Perhaps that has to do with his sense of the Pittsburgh audience?