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On Stage: 'The Cryptogram' Mother's and sons: Mamet's 'Cryptogram' is a real-life drama for theatrical family Friday, October 23, 1998 By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Eleven-year-old Nicholas Lehane yells at his mom. She yells back and he tells her to shut up. It was all her fault in the first place, he screams, before she punishes him with a cruel insult that will sting for a lifetime.
'The Cryptogram'
When: Tonight through Nov. 15.
Tickets: $22, $28, 412-431-CITY.
A few moments later, says his mom Laurie Klatscher, they're talking again quietly off stage before she drives him home after rehearsal. Child psychologists frequently recommend role-playing in dysfunctional families, but for Klatscher and Lehane the antagonistic roles are only characters in a very personal, semi-autobiographical play by David Mamet that opens tonight at City Theatre.
In "The Cryptogram," Lehane plays a psychologically battered boy in a family that's falling apart. His abusive mother is played by Klatscher, 41, Lehane's real-life, nurturing mom. Mamet supposedly modeled the characters after himself as a boy, his mother and a family friend. Although the Mamet family was crippled by the experience documented in his script, the experience of playing them has become a bonding one for Klatscher and Lehane.
Klatscher is a veteran actress with a long resume of stage and TV credits. Her husband, Gregory Lehane, is a television director who works in the drama department at Carnegie Mellon. Nick grew up in the wings and on sound stages, but his pivotal role in "The Cryptogram" is only his second acting job. (He recently appeared in Quantum Theatre's "Hapgood"). While his parents say they would have reservations if he were ever to choose an acting career, they felt particularly concerned about their son taking on this role.
"It's not a very cheery play," says Klatscher in the living room of their modest Oakland home. "It's not like Huck Finn or something. This is Mamet. We're doing a play where it gets a little bit emotionally brutal and I thought 'Is that going to carry over into our lives, like we'd gone through something bad together?' . . . [Also] this is a very difficult play to do - the hardest role I've ever done - and I knew it would be a lot of work for him and there would be compromises with school to deal with."
Mamet's script is a collage of broken sentences, incomplete thoughts and repetitious phrases spoken, screamed and cried by a heavily burdened cast of three. Klatscher says that on first reading it the workload frightened her. "But when we read it out loud together the first time it was wonderful," she says. "The thing about Mamet is you see him on paper and it looks like it will be stilted because it's all these little, tiny sentences and all these repeats. But once you start saying it, it all works beautifully. He's a magician. That's the way people really sound, with a little touch of David Mamet poetry underneath."
Working together on the play has offered the family logistical advantages. Soccer moms have to drive their kids to practice, but young Lehane laughs at the suggestion that this is like his mom has joined the team. Like many child actors he's a contrast in maturity levels: he toys with a plastic yo-yo that won't make it back up the string while waxing philosophical about theater culture.
"Of course it's challenging because it's Mamet," he says, "but it's very interesting. But there really is no downside for me working with my mom instead of a regular actor. I've seen kids with their stage moms on the set of a show my dad was directing. Their moms would kneel down and tuck in their shirts and brush their hair. Really, those kids don't need it. In this, my mom's still there, but while we're there we're both just actors. She has her job and I have mine."
Working together has been easier, in fact, because they know each other so well, suggests Klatscher. Actors normally invest a lot of time working their characters to the required level of familiarity - a major step that wasn't necessary for the mother and son.
"Even though we hadn't acted together before, we already know each other's shorthand and can jump right in," she says. "I didn't feel uncomfortable at first touching and caressing him, where if it was someone else's kid I'd want to go slowly and not force his comfort level."
". . . And it's easier to fight," adds Lehane. "We've already done it so many times for real, so we fall right into it. With a stranger I think you'd tend to be nice at first and sort of fake the hostility."
With such an insoluble bond at the core of the performance, Klatscher says it may have been easier for actor Mark Woodward to find his character and for director Jacqueline Moscou to provide focus.
Of course he's acting in "The Cryptogram," but in his young heart does Lehane believe he is an actor? He hesitates and continues flicking his yo-yo while his parents brace themselves at the edge of their seats. You could hear a pin drop.
"Um, yes and no," he says finally, hedging his bet. "I'm not professional - I don't belong to Equity. If someone says what are you I won't say I'm an actor, I'll say I'm a kid. I'm a student. You would describe yourselves as actors," he says to his parents, "but the way to describe me - there's a lot more. Kid would be a much better adjective. I can't see myself as actor in the sense that Leonardo DiCaprio is an actor. I see myself more as . . . as . . ."
"Kate Winslet?" cracks his dad and the whole family laughs. In their home the dysfunction stays on the stage.
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