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Susie Essman’s signature line on the HBO program “Curb Your Enthusiasm” cannot be printed here, but the audience at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor can expect no such restriction when the comedian performs there next Monday at 8 p.m., kicking off the summer stand-up comedy series.
Ms. Essman has been playing the flamboyant and bombastic Susie Greene, wife of Larry David’s manager, for six seasons now, but that has not necessarily resulted in a bonding experience.
“I absolutely could not be friends with Susie Greene,” said Ms. Essman. “But I admire her. She has complete and total comfort with her anger, and I admire her no-nonsense approach to everyday life. And she is very, very loyal to everybody, even to Larry. Even though he pisses her off all the time, she’s loyal to him. Anyway, how could I sit across from her and look at those outfits?”
Ms. Essman was born in Manhattan, where she still lives, and grew up in Mount Vernon. She received a B.A. from Purchase College in Westchester County, which is known for its dramatic arts program (other graduates include Wesley Snipes, Stanley Tucci, and Edie Falco). She went into comedy, though, and among the stepping-stones toward building a career were being on the first season of “The Daily Show” and supporting roles in such films as “Crocodile Dundee II,” “Baby Boom,” and “Punchline.”
Stand-up comedy continues to take up much of Ms. Essman’s time. She does about 50 nights a year, and tries to avoid doing the same act twice.
“I always change it anyway, but it’s not so much the audiences as the venues,” she explained. “Bay Street, for example, where I’ve played twice before, is a pretty intimate space with only a few hundred people. I work differently than in an arena, some bigger space. But let’s face it, most of the audience I draw are ‘Curb’ fans, so there always has to be a certain amount of material connected to the show.”
Her big break was being cast in “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It began in 1999 as a one-hour mockumentary, the first project by Larry David after he and Jerry Seinfeld ended the run of “Seinfeld” on NBC. After it aired, HBO asked that it be turned into a series. The creators had claimed that “Seinfeld” was a show about nothing; in the case of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” it is a show about the small, occasionally surprising details of David’s daily life. He plays his post-“Seinfeld” self, his wife is played by Cheryl Hines, his manager is played by Jeff Garlin, and Jeff Greene’s wife is Susie Greene.
The comedian Richard Lewis plays David’s best friend, and among those who have appeared on the show in small roles are Dustin Hoffman, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Martin Scorsese, Hugh Hefner, Mel Brooks, and even Sen. Barbara Boxer and John McEnroe.
“Every well-known actor I’ve met or worked with on another project has said to me, ‘Can you get me on the show?’” Ms. Essman said. “Everybody wants to be on that show. And how lucky am I—I’m already on it!”
Given that the show supposedly mirrors much of Larry David’s life, it could have been strange to shoot the last season, which included the plot line of Larry and Cheryl breaking up when in real life David and his wife were breaking up.
But Ms. Essman pointed out that “Larry and Laurie split up in June 2007, and we had finished shooting the last season the previous March. We had no idea what was really going on. Life imitated art in this case.
“After they split up, and knowing that the shows would be on HBO starting in September, I asked Larry about that. He claims, and I believe him, that he had no idea he and his wife would be splitting up when he was writing the scripts and we were shooting them. However, the unconscious is a powerful thing. Marriages don’t just end out of nowhere. He must have had some indications that things weren’t going well. The scripts might have been his fantasy or reflected his wishes.”
Ms. Essman’s wishes right now include a new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and that is looking promising. “I know Larry’s been working on it and I think he has eight of the 10 scripts written,” she reported. “He’s probably not making much progress at the moment because he is here in New York starring in the new movie that Woody Allen is shooting. What a combination they are!
“Knowing Larry and what a perfectionist he is, he won’t say we’re doing another season until he has all the scripts written and he’s happy with them.”
She isn’t sitting around waiting. In between stand-up gigs, Ms. Essman has been recording one of the voices for “Bolt,” an animated film from Disney that is due to be released in November. She plays a cat named Mittens that takes a road trip to Hollywood with a dog played by John Travolta and a hamster voiced by Thomas Haden Church.
“It also has Miley Cyrus, which is the real reason why my kids will go see it,” Ms. Essman said. “It’s been a lot of fun and I managed to get a lot of ‘Susie-isms’ in there.”
When she returns to being Susie Greene, what guest star would she like to see on the show? “How I would love to curse out George Bush, but I wouldn’t want him on the show because then I would have to see him all the time.” Then, perhaps sending a message via the local press, she added, “I would love to have Alec Baldwin on the show because I think that acting with him and improvising with him would be so much fun. Maybe he’ll be at Bay Street next Monday night.”
Only if he has a ticket: Ms. Essman’s show is already sold out.
Curses!
on Jun 2, 2008