Higgins: from acting to directing in Seattle
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John Michael Higgins has little to prove as an actor.
Now 41, he has excelled in classics and modern comedies, on stage and screen, since he was a child performer in Washington, D.C. "I've been acting forever," he tells you, in a manner that's both wry and sincere.
Some movie buffs will recognize this handsome thespian — the cleft chin, green eyes, dark, wavy hair — from the two Christopher Guest films he scored laughs in: "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind."
And he was recently honored with a 2004 Drama Desk Award nomination for his portrayal of closeted gay tennis champ Bill Tilden, in A.R. Gurney's Off-Broadway bio-play "Big Bill."
But Higgins isn't in Seattle to perform. Or to just visit his brother, Patrick Higgins, a "policy wonk" for the Canadian consulate.
He's here tackling his first major assignment as a regional theater director: staging the Ferenc Molnar/P.G. Wodehouse farce, "The Play's the Thing." A satiric look at theater folk crossing wits over love and art in a castle on the Italian Riviera, it opens tomorrow at Intiman Theatre.
It's become a cliché now, that all actors long to direct. Higgins has been trying it out in smaller theaters in L.A., where he resides.
"I love actors, like dealing with them, and no longer have a huge need to jump up and down and make faces on stage all the time myself," says Higgins of directing.
But he's too serious to be a dabbler. And some influential pals consider him well-cast for the new role.
"Michael is a master at comedy," says Intiman artistic head Bartlett Sher. "When I was directing 'Loot' at Hartford Stage Company, and Michael was acting in a different piece there, I invited him to watch one of my rehearsals. He gave me the most wonderful suggestions, and I thought, 'This guy should be a director. He sees the big picture.'... "
Prominent Seattle opera and theater director Stephen Wadsworth is another Higgins fan, having directed him (and the actor's wife, Maggie Welsh) in several classical works.
Notes Wadsworth, "Michael has two extraordinary things that qualify him for directing.
"First, he's pretty much the best script doctor I know. And second, he has a gut instinct about the shape of scene, how it should go."
And how should P.G. Wodehouse's 1926 English-language version of Molnar's 1925 Hungarian comedy unfurl?
"Molnar believed any problem in life could be solved with humor, ingenuity and gamesmanship," says Higgins, "and I keep that in mind.
"And the play has a continental high society feel to it, because that's what Molnar lived, breathed and loved. But it also has a Slavic soul."
Blending comic élan with soul — that could be Higgins' motto. And he has found like-minded comrades in such directors as Guest and Wadsworth.
"Stephen (Wadsworth) and I have enjoyed a great collaboration," says Higgins, of the Marivaux plays ("The Triumph of Love," "The Game of Love and Chance," "Changes of Heart") they've done together at New Jersey's McCarter Theatre.
"We agree on the notion that style is substance, and on using color, rhythm, movement, sound, silence as aesthetic elements ... but never at the expense of spontaneity, human feeling or emotional depth."
Higgins also finds depth in Guest's approach to ensemble film comedy — even if his roles in "A Mighty Wind" (as Terry Bohner, a folk musician married to an ex-porn star) and "Best in Show" (as Scott Donlan, a flamboyant gay man who raises Shih Tzu dogs) were writ lampoon-large.
"Chris (Guest) isn't chasing jokes, he's chasing accurate behavior that delights and amuses us because we recognize it," asserts Higgins. "What he does is full of humanity and heart."
It will take ingenuity to inject both into the '20s Molnar romp, which at Intiman features David Cromwell as a clever dramatist contriving to prevent the love triangle between a beautiful actress (Heather Guiles), her composer suitor (Quinlan Corbett) and an egocentric actor (Mark Capri) from ruining his next project. (Another version of the Molnar script, "Rough Crossing" by Tom Stoppard, places the action on an ocean liner.)
Sher chose the work, and Higgins to direct it, because "it's a perfect confection. It has so much heart, intelligence, wickedness. It always reminds me of a great American farce crossed with a Fellini film."
Higgins also contends the script's play-within-a-play, art-imitates-life format "influenced some early avant-garde dramatists, like Pirandello."
But the debonair Molnar probably would make no such claim, he admits. Molnar crafted popular fare for chic patrons in Europe and America, and declared he became a writer "in the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money."
Higgins is clearly pleasing himself by moving into the director's chair. But as he and his wife expect their first child (a girl, due in August), he's still a working actor with roles in several upcoming films (the improvised comedy "La La Land," the sci-fi sequel "Blade: Trinity" and "Diva," starring Annette Bening).
And asked what play he'd want to direct next, Higgins replies "G.B. Shaw's 'Man and Superman.' Or I'd love to act in it."
Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com
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