Stage vets in the spotlight ; John Procaccino leads the way as Seattle talent goes solo at ACT
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THEATER PREVIEW
"The Fever" by Wallace Shawn, directed by Laurence Ballard, opens tonight at A Contemporary Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle. It plays Wednesday-Sunday through June 25 ($10-15; 206-292-7676).
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It's easy to take for granted the hard-working Seattle actors we know and love. But several will soon get a rare chance to re-dazzle us, in a series of solo plays at A Contemporary Theatre's Bullitt Cabaret.
In July, David Pichette appears in "Via Dolorosa," David Hare's eyewitness account of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East.
In August, Laurence Ballard performs "St. Nicholas," an eerie tale of a drama critic's encounters with the undead, by Conor McPherson.
But first up is Wallace Shawn's "The Fever," enacted by John Procaccino under Ballard's direction.
An impassioned, purgative monologue about our own collusion with Third World poverty, "The Fever" opens tonight at ACT. And Procaccino admits he's nervous.
"The script is 40 pages of extremely dense writing, and I'm just getting those last pages memorized," he remarked recently.
"It's also working alone, which I've never done before. My process, the way I was taught, is that you have nothing to do onstage until someone else gives you a reason to do it. Here the only other character is the audience. And I want them to stay with me, and leave with things to think about."
Nervousness aside, Procaccino feels up for the challenge. And if he pulls off this biting diatribe, it will be another victory for the strapping, 47-year-old actor in a time of positive professional and personal change.
Though often employed at Seattle Repertory Theatre and other local venues since moving here in 1977, the Ohio native's acting career is getting a terrific second wind. Since 1998, he's worked a lot on the East Coast - on Broadway as the male lead in Wendy Wasserstein's "An American Daughter," as Alan Alda's understudy in "Art," and in what he calls "one of my most fabulous experiences ever," a recent New Haven staging of Anne Meara's play "Down the Garden Path," with Eli Wallach.
Closer to home, Procaccino has displayed a growing depth and flexibility at ACT, as the trumpeter father in "Side Man," and at the Rep, as an 18th-century noble in "The Game of Love and Chance."
"I'm a utility infielder," Procaccino declares, with genial modesty. "People know I can play a lot of positions, and pick things up fast."
But he also links his artistic maturation to "growing up as a person. At some point, you realize life doesn't have to be such a fight, that the success you're running toward isn't important. It's about relaxing into life, getting more focus."
For Procaccino, it was also about ending a drinking habit that created "a lot of chaos for me. For years, I had a constant sense of restlessness. I felt I could never be who I wanted to be. My fiancee helped me go into recovery two years ago, and it was a blessing from God. I found a faith in being simple and just telling the truth."
Part of the earlier "chaos" came from burning the candle at both ends. Off and on for 12 years, Procaccino was both an entertainment reporter for KIRO-TV, and a stage actor - "madness, absolute madness. I had to be `on' all the time."
Procaccino originally broke into Seattle theater with the help of Empty Space Theatre head M. Burke Walker. Another friend and ally was former Seattle Rep artistic director Daniel Sullivan, who cast him in some 30 Rep shows. (Personal favorites: "Tartuffe" and "Caucasion Chalk Circle.")
He muses, "Danny and I are friends for life. We've been anchors for each other. And at the risk of making other directors mad, I've never worked with anyone who can stage a play as well as Danny."
Like Sullivan, Procaccino probably has the creds now to toil full time in New York. But he and fiancee Lara-Anne Jordan enjoy living in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood.
And ACT artistic head Gordon Edelstein is so pleased with Procaccino's local work, he's bringing him back later this season to co-star in Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple," with R. Hamilton Wright.
"John is one of the most gifted, versatile actors I've ever worked with," says Edelstein. "He has great emotional depth, and tremendous technical and comic facility."
Yet despite such high praise, and his new personal contentment, Procaccino says he's still in flux.
"I adore Seattle, but still have to go where the work is to earn a living," he says. "Seattle theaters are always raising money for capitol improvements. I just wish they'd find money to raise actors' salaries."