Elliott Gould Steps Back To The Stage For `Deathtrap'

----------------------------------------------------------------- Theater preview

"Deathtrap," starring Elliott Gould and Cindy Williams, plays at the Paramount Theatre, Tuesdays through Sundays, Feb. 25 through March 9; $17-$39, 292-ARTS. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Interviewing actor Elliott Gould is rather like playing a game of tag with someone in pea-soup fog.

When you pose a question to Gould and he becomes "it," tracking his rambling answers before they fade into the heavy mist of private obscurity can be a challenge.

In a soft baritone that's barely audible over the phone from Florida, Gould grazes across matters spiritual and mundane - from his lifelong search for self-realization to the critical bruising he has taken as star of the touring suspense drama, "Deathtrap." (The show, which co-stars Cindy Williams of TV's "Laverne and Shirley" fame, plays the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Feb. 25 through March 9.)

"I understand some people think I'm wildly miscast in this," Gould says about his role as a bitter, washed-up playwright plotting to kill a colleague.

"But I don't really care about reviews, or what people think. I thought doing this part would be very interesting for me, and I'd be very interesting for it."

Though straightforward on that topic, Gould can often sound like a refugee from a marathon group-therapy encounter session circa 1969 - the year he shot to movie stardom in Paul Mazurky's satirical romp, "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice."

"I've been on a spiritual mission for a long time," intones the 58-year old actor, "and there's been no meaning for me until I can be in peace and harmony."

All right, fine. Yet even if it's clear the guy's something of a ding-dong (even by Hollywood standards), Gould also presents himself as a committed professional toiling diligently at his craft. And a man who endeavors not to let the highs and lows of a long-term career in show biz botch up his bliss.

"You know what the word `career' actually means?" he asks. "The definition in Webster's dictionary says it's from the Spanish word for racetrack."

That's an apt allusion for Gould's fortunes as a performer, which in four decades have been as erratic as the rewards of off-track betting.

Raised Elliott Goldstein in Brooklyn, he started singing and dancing as a child. "I'd go into Manhattan for lessons, I'd do club dates, vaudeville. The rationale of my parents was that I was shy, withdrawn and inhibited, and if I learned routines I'd be able to communicate."

Though most people who've seen the rumpled, cuddly-angsty, adult Gould onscreen don't know it, he excelled as a song-and-dance man.

"Listen, I was a great tapper," Gould insists. He hoofed and crooned his way into several Broadway shows, first as a chorus boy, then in 1962 as star of "I Can Get it For You Wholesale."

In that company he met future wife Barbra Streisand - who, in her subsequent role as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl," transformed pronto into a phenomenon.

Gould doesn't have much to say about their four-year marriage, whichwas famously rough on his ego and sent him into psychotherapy. (He now refers to his ex-wife, with dry formality, as "Miss Streisand.")

But Gould speaks warmly of their son, Jason Gould. (The actor has two more adult children, Sam and Molly, from a second marriage.) And after appearing in "Inside Out," Jason Gould's short film about a young man confronting his homosexuality, Gould calls his son "the best director I've worked with."

Though Gould never reached the supernova heights that ex-wife Streisand scaled, he spent time in kleig heaven, too. In "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," Mazurky's hilarious study of two California couples trying desperately to swing together, Gould was Ted, the straight-arrow of the quartet. The role won him an Oscar bid and industry respect.

And, he explains earnestly, "It gave me my first objective relationship: with a camera. Until then, I never thought I could understand or accept objectivity.

"I couldn't be objective with my mom, my dad or with me. I was purely subjective, very emotional and insulated. But I realized the camera is an inanimate object, which I can accept. So it was my first real friend."

The camera also loved Gould in his next film, Robert Altman's irreverent, improvisatory black comedy about a Korean War medical unit, "M # A # S # H." Gould recalls that Altman "gave me a lot of room to open myself up. At times it was distracting for him, because I was never out of character."

Nevertheless, Altman hired Gould again, to play detective Philip Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye" and a compulsive gambler in the underrated gem, "California Split."

The latter film "was semi-autobiographical," Gould reveals, "but George Segal played the guy based on me. At that time I was pretty obsessive and compulsive about betting on sporting events."

If the 1970s were Gould's glory years, the 1980s almost ignored him. He appeared in the first, failed TV series of "E.R.," popped up as a six-time host on "Saturday Night Live" and worked in a stream of so-so films.

Juicy character bits in "Bugsy," and in the upcoming "City of Industry" and "johns," have brought Gould into sharper focus in the '90s, and a recurring role (as Monica and Ross' dad) in the hot sitcom "Friends" is introducing him to a younger crowd.

And "Deathtrap" brings him back to the boards. But while the actor praises Levin's long-running Broadway thriller, and the respected director (John Tillinger) of this revival, the gig has been bumpy.

Just before the 25-city tour of "Deathtrap" began, Woody Allen called Gould "out of the blue to offer me the title role in his new movie, `Deconstructing Harry.' "

But because he was committed to "Deathtrap," Gould bit the bullet and passed on his best film shot in years. He regards the loss philosophically: "It gave me an opportunity to divide myself from resentment."

Gould also adjusted when his stage co-star, Mariette Hartley, developed serious throat problems and dropped out. Hartley was replaced by Williams, the madcap Shirley from TV's long-running "Laverne and Shirley."

Cheerfully admitting she hasn't done a play "since I was a student at L.A. City College," Williams says she joined the "Deathtrap" company in Nashville, after a week's rehearsal ("mostly in my living room").

Though Williams harbored fears about diving head-first into a national stage tour, she had no qualms about Gould.

"I've known Elliott for years and I just adore him," she says. "He's the wisest one in the woods, just a wonderful, wonderful person and actor. I'm blessed to be onstage with him."

Some drama critics haven't shared her enthusiasm, complaining that Gould simply doesn't suit his role.

"Gould is cuddly and warm and doesn't know how to drip venom," complained Los Angeles reviewer Linda Winer. "You want a cutting Monty Woolley here and you get a cute woolly mammoth."

The actor again tries to rise above the slings and arrows: "I don't have a problem with critics; that's their job. Mine is living, learning and communicating. And I'm sure the audience is getting its money's worth.

"It's all in Ira's writing, anyway. It's a play about greed and vanity and ego and morality, and many interesting areas of the human psyche."

Despite the knocks, Gould says he'd like more stage work. Bergman offered to direct him in "Uncle Vanya" and (more surprisingly) "Othello." And Gould says he may return to musical comedy, perhaps in a future tour of "Fiddler on the Roof."

"I like John Huston's advice about getting older: `Stay interested,' " the actor reflects. "I feel like I'm coming into a new age as an older, more mature person.

"This theater piece is very positive for me, even if I can't please all the people all of the time. All I can do is give my all. And all I want is to be one of us, and exist in harmony."