Burstyn fine choice for 'Confederate' role
By Mark Kennedy
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Ellen Burstyn's return to the Longacre Theatre has been much less messy than her debut.
Back in November 1957, the budding actress arrived on Broadway for a production of Sam Locke's "Fair Game" as 24-year-old beauty with no theater experience. Her most prominent role until that point was being eye candy on Jackie Gleason's TV show.
Veteran actors at the Longacre had their knives out in welcome.
"It was a play with some rather difficult actors," Burstyn recalls, diplomatically. "I had no technique — it was my first audition and I got a lead on Broadway. So there was probably some resentment. You know, 'Who is this young whippersnapper coming along and getting a lead?' It was a difficult experience."
Forty-six years later, the former whippersnapper returns to the Longacre with an Academy Award, a Tony, international acclaim and a new play. And this time, she's the only one on stage.
"There are no difficulties with other actors in this play!" she exclaims, laughing.
In "Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All," Burstyn plays Lucille Marsden, a tough-as-nails 99-year-old nursing home resident who tells stories stretching back to the Civil War days of her much older husband, Confederate Capt. Marsden.
Adapted from Allan Gurganis' popular 1989 novel, the play explores the war between the states and the sexes as seen through the jaunty eyes of a woman who married at age 15, lived through Reconstruction and delivered nine children.
On stage for two hours, Burstyn seems to revel in the humor, delivering such lines as: "Folks oohed and aahed that somebody as skinny as I was could have so many kids so fast. It's like a jar of olives — once you get the first worked loose, others topple more freely."
Besides Lucille Marsden, Burstyn does about 20 other characters, making the show a marathon as much as it is a tour de force.
During the 1970s, she starred in such classic films as "The Last Picture Show," "The Exorcist" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," for which she won an Oscar in 1975.
Her other films include an adaptation of Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," "Alex in Wonderland," "The King of Marvin Gardens" and "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." Her portrayal of a lonely, pill-addicted mother in Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" earned Burstyn her sixth Oscar nomination.
Landing Burstyn as the voice of his narrator was an instant delight for Gurganis. Despite her body of work, the novelist suspects she hasn't always gotten her due in Hollywood because she's not enough of a diva. "She has all the options of a movie star and she exercises none of them," Gurganis said. "It's all about the work for her. She turns everything back to enriching her talent and her resources," he says.
As for the theater itself, a lot has changed for Burstyn since she made her debut at the Longacre.
"There were lots of ghosts there when I came in," she says. "It feels very comfortable now. It's a whole different experience. Every once in a while I'll think how weird it is that I'm back treading these particular boards at this age."
