Briton Suzanne Bertish Doesn’t Mind Taking Her Act on the Road

Suzanne Bertish, currently starring with Stephanie Beacham and Rupert Everett in Noel Coward’s classic “The Vortex” at the Ahmanson at the Doolittle Theatre, seems veddy, veddy British. But appearances can be deceiving.

“I know I sound English,” Bertish explains, “but my sensibility is not English. I feel more completely at home emotionally and psychologically in New York than in London.”

Though born and raised in Britain, “my mother is American and Catholic,” Bertish says. “I was brought up Catholic. My father was English, but was Jewish. He didn’t practice his faith. Essentially, I am not English.”

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Tony Award-winning production of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” first brought her to New York a decade ago. The Big Apple, she says, “released a side of me that, and still does, cannot flourish any way honestly in England. The English are passionate and emotional, but you wouldn’t know it. You have to be very polite. New Yorkers are much more direct and honest.”

“The Vortex” marks Bertish’s Los Angeles stage debut. “I did it in order to be here in Los Angeles and working,” she says. “It’s good to become familiar with another city.”

And she’s found Los Angeles to be a very curious city. “Everyone is really nice and they say they are really caring and sharing,” Bertish says. “But I wonder how much sharing and caring actually goes on in their heart? I have also encountered incredible rudeness in the industry. There is just a total lack of respect here for theater and the whole art of theater.”

Still, Bertish would like to stay here after “The Vortex” closes in late March. “I think California, God knows, is fantastically seductive” she says. “It’s snowing in London today. You can earn money here and if the opportunity arose, it isn’t a bad life. America is much more user-friendly than England.”