Jordan Lage, an actor who has worked in New York for some 25 years, is a regular in the Broadway softball league every summer. "I play right field, first base, and second base," he said. "Every time the batter steps into the box, I tell myself, 'This time, it's coming to me.' That way, I'm always prepared."
Earlier this week, events conspired to smack a line drive right at the veteran, and he didn't flinch. The lone male understudy in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, Lage pinch-hit for Piven Tuesday when the three-time Emmy Award winner left the show because of an illness.
"I was down in Delaware visiting my parents when I got a call Monday from [director] Neil Pepe," he said. "He told me there was a strong possibility I would go on Tuesday because Jeremy had checked himself into a hospital in Connecticut."
A doctor has told reporters that Piven left the show because of mercury poisoning, but the New York Post has quoted anonymous investors saying they were skeptical about the diagnosis; other sources told the paper that Piven has been bored by the role and was trying to find other actors to take his place.
Whatever the reason, by the time the curtain falls on Sunday, Lage will have played the part of Bobby Gould for all eight performances this week. Next Tuesday, Norbert Leo Butz steps in until Jan. 11. William H. Macy, a longtime Mamet associate, will take it from Jan. 13 – Feb. 22, when the show is scheduled to close.
Lage, who has studied with Mamet and Macy at New York University and the Atlantic Theater, said the shows have gone pretty well so far. "I wasn't quite prepared for the pace that Raul takes the play," he said of co-star Raul Esparza. "But it would be virtually impossible for me to step into the role and fly along at the pace he's used to, or the pace he was used to with Jeremy."
Consequently, there were some flubs that night, for which Lage took the blame. "But I still think we gave the audience our money's worth," he said.
On Wednesday, when Lage had to perform two shows, things went much more smoothly. 'For the matinee, we had a great audience," he said. "For the evening performance, there were 250 people who asked for their money back because Jeremy wasn't there. But over 500 people stayed."
By Thursday night, the house was nearly full. "The audience was fantastic, because they were there to see the play," he said. "Of course, the more you do it, the better you get. I'm only doing it for the week. Which is fine."
Lage's voice trailed off a bit, but as someone who has worked in New York for a quarter century, he understands the producers' need to finish the show with actors whose names can help sell tickets. Still, it's ironic that Lage, who has dedicated himself to theatre, gets to play a lead part in a Mamet play on Broadway only when a television actor doesn't have the stamina to fulfill five-month contract.
"There's a common joke amongst people of my level," he said, "guys who have been in New York for a number of decades, who have had our fair share of roles and the odd understudy gig: You gotta go out to L.A. and become a TV or movie star to have a career in the theatre."
The practice of bringing in well-known actors from Hollywood to star in straight plays is nothing new, and it is likely to become more commonplace during the economic downturn. It is not a coincidence that of all the postponements over the past two months, one of the few scheduled plays left standing is Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations, which has Jane Fonda playing the lead and begins performances Feb. 3.
"You cannot open a straight play on Broadway without some kind of a name attached, plain and simple," Lage said. "I'm not going to rail against the system, because I don't think that would be very productive. It kind of is the way it is."
Being a Mamet protégé, Lage isn't one to sit around and mope. In addition to his acting, he teaches at the Atlantic and New York University. "I tell my students, most of whom are not going to get jobs right after they get their degree: Stop whining, quit being a cry-baby, and create your own goddamn work," he said.
Wednesday night around 10 p.m., after 36 hours of intense preparation and, between rehearsals and performances, six full run-throughs of the play, Lage went to the Atlantic's black-box theatre to watch his students perform a revue of the sketch-comedy material they had written during the semester. "They had really taken my advice to heart," he said. "They were hilarious, and the audience loved it."