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Stage role a sinister look for Tom ('Ed') Cavanagh
Associated Press
Jul 24, 2008
NEW YORK - Tom Cavanagh is the kind of guy who holds doors open for strangers. He shakes hands firmly, and seems genuinely interested in meeting you. Though famished, he politely doesn't scarf down his lunch while answering questions.
Cavanagh, who poured that likability into the lead character of NBC's series "Ed," can't help it: He's as sweet in person as he is on screen.
It's something he's trying to overcome.
Politely, of course.
" 'Ed' allowed me to have a profile and it would be ridiculous to say, 'I rail against the fact that they think of me as nice!' " he said. "It's up to me to try and find things that are different."
Consider it found. Cavanagh, 44, is spending this summer playing a deeply unsympathetic part in an off-Broadway revival of "Some Americans Abroad," which opened yesterday and continues through Aug. 3 at Second Stage Theatre.
The play, by Richard Nelson, follows the ugly infighting and betrayal among elite American university chaperones during a cultural visit to England.
Cavanagh portrays the nebbish chairman of an English department forced to handle a brewing sex scandal, the task of firing a colleague and evidence of an undercover faculty romance.
Fans of "Ed" - or of Cavanagh's turns on the recent series "Love Monkey" and his guest spots on "Scrubs" - are not likely to see anything endearing.
The play - originally performed in England in 1989 by English actors playing Americans - is not easy to perform. Even the playwright warned that it changes every night, even if the actors are doing it right.
"It's tricky. It's very hard to realize the potential of this play," says Cavanagh during an interview in the theater's empty seats before a recent performance.
"There are levels of exhilaration. You might say, 'That little pocket went as well as it has ever gone. I could feel it and the audience could feel it.' And the pocket next to it was abysmal and maybe I should be booed off the stage."
Gordon Edelstein, who directs Cavanagh, hopes that won't happen. He says he's impressed by the actor's natural intelligence and work ethic.
"His sensitivity and awareness about how and when something is working and when it's not is extremely acute, and his radar for that is as sharp as any actor," says Edelstein. "His radar is for the truth of the matter, the truth of the scene." *
Copyright 2008
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