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Toward the end of “Carrie,” the Brian De Palma film based on the Stephen King novel, what seems to be the hand of the title character reaches out from her grave and grabs Amy Irving’s arm.
This remains one of the scariest scenes in American films. Yet Ms. Irving doesn’t trade on that famous scene or, for that matter, much of her movie work. In fact, her resume is ripe with a wide variety of stage roles.
The most recent listing is “The Glass Menagerie,” and East End audiences will have an opportunity to see the Tennessee Williams classic beginning on July 8, the first night of previews for the first full-scale production presented at the renovated John Drew Theater of Guild Hall in East Hampton.
Though only in her 20s when she made such career benchmark films as “Carrie,” “The Fury” (another film by Mr. De Palma), “The Competition” with Richard Dreyfuss, and “Yentl” directed by Barbra Streisand, Ms. Irving was already a stage veteran. She was born into a stage family in Palo Alto, California. Her father, Jules Irving, was a film and stage director who years later ran the theater program at Lincoln Center. Her mother is the actress Priscilla Pointer and her brother is the film director David Irving. (She also has a sister, Katie, who is a teacher.)
That same resume states that Ms. Irving was only 2 when she made her stage debut in a production her father directed. But she noted in a recent interview that her stage career goes back even farther.
“I was actually in my mother’s belly while she was on stage doing ‘Playboy of the Western World,’” she said, “so I literally have been acting my entire life.”
She was first noticed at age 12 when she had a scene with the actor Stacey Keach in the Broadway production of “The Country Wife.” She went on to study theater at the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She must have studied well, because back in the states Ms. Irving was quickly listed in the Rolodexes of many casting directors. On television she appeared on such shows as “Police Woman” and “Happy Days” and in the miniseries “Once an Eagle.”
She then went on a roll with movie roles. After the early ingénue parts and in addition to the Richard Dreyfuss and Barbra Streisand films, Ms. Irving starred in “Voices,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” and “Micki and Maude.” She had received an Oscar nomination for her role in “Yentl,” but perhaps her most noteworthy performance was in “Crossing Delancey,” for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe. She also appeared in the Disney movie “Tuck Everlasting” and co-starred opposite Michael Douglas in Academy Award-winner Steven Soderbergh’s film “Traffic.” Loading up the DVD player, Ms. Irving can also be found on screen in “Bossa Nova,” “Carried Away,” “Deconstructing Harry,” “I’m Not Rappaport,” “13 Conversations About One Thing,” “Hide and Seek,” and “Adam.”
Her theater work has been especially rewarding and certainly consistent. She starred in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” at the Roundabout Theater and received critical acclaim on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass” at the Booth Theater, for which she was nominated for both the 1994 Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award. She has also starred in the Broadway productions of “Amadeus” and “Heartbreak House,” for which she received another Drama Desk nomination, and she won an Obie Award as Best Actress for her performance in “Road to Mecca” as well as receiving a Drama Desk nomination. She had the leading role in the 1991 Los Angeles premiere of “The Heidi Chronicles.”
It was at the Santa Fe Festival Theatre in 1994 that Ms. Irving starred with her mother in “The Glass Menagerie,” so in a way she is coming full circle while her mother is trying to let go. “She’s been gracefully dealing with what is sort of a passing-the-torch moment,” Ms. Irving said. “We talk on the phone a lot and she asks about the scenes we’re working on that day. She’s flying in from Santa Monica to see the show, and it will be a great pleasure to have her here.”
Neither Ms. Pointer’s performance nor the interpretations by Laurette Taylor and Katharine Hepburn in earlier productions of “The Glass Menagerie” are front and center on Ms. Irving’s radar as she navigates her way through this role with the help of director Harris Yulin. “I always walk out there feeling like I’m the first one doing it, and my Amanda is going to be different from how she was played before,” she said. “I can’t be thinking of Hepburn. No actress can, or we wouldn’t be able to perform.
“However, having said that, what I am experiencing is with certain line readings I’m hearing my mother from the production 15 years ago. I’m trying to block her out, though I admit I’ve stolen a few things from her. She’ll pick up on them when she’s here.”
This particular production is also a kind of turning point in Ms. Irving’s career. “I am at a time of my life where I’m re-evaluating what I can play,” she explained. “I grew up in the theater dreaming of the ingénue roles and about playing Shakespeare’s Juliet and Laura in ‘The Glass Menagerie.’ I didn’t dream about playing Amanda, but now it’s roles like that I have to think about.”
In 2007, she enjoyed a long run in the Tony-winning play by Tom Stoppard, “The Coast of Utopia.” “I had seen it in London and was floored by it, so when I was approached about doing the New York production all I kept thinking was, ‘Yes, please,’” Ms. Irving said. “A huge bonus was that the first six weeks of rehearsal was really a master class in theater conducted by Tom Stoppard. He is a brilliant man.”
Another especially fond memory was acting with a stage and screen legend. During the production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” at the Circle in the Square Theatre, she starred opposite Rex Harrison. “I was completely awed, but he turned out different from what I expected,” recalled Ms. Irving. “He was very flirtatious. He had Rosemary Harris and I giving him as much girly attention as he could stand. He was very happy during that production, and very playful. His aim was to make me crack up on stage. Making me giggle on stage made his day. He was a total rascal.”
Along the way there have been other television appearances. Ms. Irving starred in the CBS television movie “The Twilight Zone: Rod Sterling’s Lost Classics.” She also starred in the hit mini-series “Anastasia,” for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, and appeared on “Spin City,” “Law and Order: SVU,” and several episodes of “Alias.” It was while being on “Police Woman” that she first met Mr. Yulin, the veteran actor who is directing “The Glass Menagerie.” They also appeared together in a TV movie with Sarah Miles and a relatively unknown Harrison Ford.
“He enjoys directing so much,” she said about Mr. Yulin, who has directed at Guild Hall before. “He’s very generous with actors, and allows us to fall on our faces before cleaning the mess up.”
Ms. Irving has produced plays in New York and elsewhere but hasn’t found time in recent years to take on that chore again, and she doesn’t necessarily miss it. “I’m having way too much fun doing what I’m doing. I know I’ve missed some opportunities along the way because I was busy raising kids,” she said, referring to her son Max by her first husband, the director Steven Spielberg, and her son Gabriel with Bruno Barreto, her second husband, who is also a director.
“I’ve been very fortunate as an actress with the opportunities I have had, such as originating a role in a play written by Athol Fugard and doing ‘Broken Glass’ by Arthur Miller with Arthur right there doing daily rewrites. So with producing, I’ll just see if the right piece and circumstances come along.”
For now, “The Glass Menagerie” is all-consuming, and that is fine with her. “I’m having a wonderful time,” said Ms. Irving. “I’m in one of the greatest plays of all time with a terrific director and cast and performing it in July in East Hampton in a magical theater. It’s all good.”
“The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams will run through July 26 at the John Drew Theater of Guild Hall, 158 Main Street in East Hampton. For tickets, call the John Drew box office at 324-4050 or go to www.guildhall.org.
on Jul 7, 2009