Adding a Bit of Fire to ‘The Crucible’

You might think a Sunday evening visit to the rustically beautiful Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, nestled in woodsy Topanga Canyon and often devoted to presenting Shakespeare and other well-trodden theater classics, might provide respite from the nagging political and moral issues of contemporary American society.

Not on this night.

This particular performance of Arthur Miller’s 1953 “The Crucible,” a sharp indictment of McCarthyism in the form of an exploration of the hysteria of the Salem witch hunt of 1692, took place the night before President Bill Clinton was to address the nation to tell the world of his “inappropriate” relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky.

The parallels between the story of adulterous farmer John Proctor and his stoic wife, Elizabeth, both accused of forming a pact with the devil, and the ongoing Clinton soap opera were not lost on this audience, who buzzed about the pending presidential statement like the dragonflies whizzing through the evening air.

And it is not lost on actor Jim LeFave, 40, who plays John Proctor in this production. “It is so contemporary; people do make that connection right away,” mused LeFave during a conversation at the theater the next day, just a few hours before Clinton’s address.

LeFave noted that, while the Clinton story had gained even more resonance during the past few days, its fallout was never far from his thoughts during the rehearsals and performances for the show, which continues through Sept. 20. “It’s always been on my mind,” he said. “I saw this play as a kind of ‘Fatal Attraction,’ a Gothic one, with severe consequences.

“ ‘Is the accuser always holy now?’ That is the line in the play that really resounds for us in today’s society, because through the press and through the media, the accuser is holy, and people are butchered in the court of public opinion, which is a monster.”

In addition to the parallels to current events, “The Crucible” also resonates with anyone who knows the history of the theater, founded by Will Geer--Grandpa on “The Waltons”--as a performing haven for himself and other Hollywood actors blacklisted during the McCarthy era. But much of the show’s heat simply comes from LeFave--whose intense dark eyes, dark unruly curls and high-energy acting style tend to land him the “dangerous” roles. “It’s hard for me to be taken as non-dangerous, nonthreatening; I’d never be the guy who is innocent,” he offers with a sly laugh.

Bringing that dangerous quality to the strait-laced Proctor represents an unusual choice for an actor, one that works for LeFave, according to a review by The Times’ Don Shirley. “This guy is a hothead from the get-go--a far cry from the frequent interpretation of Proctor as a rock of cool, common sense,” Shirley wrote. “The volume of LeFave’s voice and the sarcasm evident within his occasional smiles initially grate, but eventually his performance evolves into something quite moving.”

“I’m one of those actors, according to your reviewer, who does not have a problem being heard,” LeFave joked (the same review noted LeFave’s “bellowing” tone as Proctor). But he added the choice to play Proctor against type was a conscious decision by him, and by theater artistic director Ellen Geer (Will’s daughter), who directed the show.

“I think that is something that is very different about this production--the thing starts out at a high level of intensity and it just keeps going up,” LeFave said. “It’s very hard for us, in our contemporary society, to go back 300 years into this very scary, paranoid world. These people prayed constantly, with one eye on God and the other on their neighbor to see how they were praying. It’s hard, maybe for the younger actors especially, to put themselves in a situation like that.”

LeFave decided to simply throw himself into it. “If you approach this like you are playing a Puritan, a man who didn’t feel and didn’t emote, you end up with not what Arthur Miller wrote,” LeFave said. “This is a man who didn’t fit into the fold, he was a bit different. I think John Proctor is a precursor to all of our great, rebellious American heroes.

“I’ve always felt the strongest in a play that has some kind of a fight to it, like maybe there’s some wrong in society that maybe a play can address. I think movies and television can’t do that. They can do sad stories, but anything that’s controversial or difficult they can’t do, because they don’t make any money. . . . How often can you be moved in TV without some sappy music to tell you what you are supposed to feel?”

Though LeFave is too young for the blacklist scandal, he perhaps absorbed a little of the outrage of the actors of that era through a decade of making the Theatricum Botanicum his second home. “Crucible” is his 10th play; other roles include his favorite, Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”; Autolycus in “A Winter’s Tale”; Elia Kazan in Ellen’s Geer’s own play about the blacklist, “. . . and the Dark Cloud Came”; Tom in “The Glass Menagerie” and parts in several Shakespeare plays.

Though not a blood relation, LeFave feels like an honorary member of the Geer clan. “I lived in a trailer on Ellen’s frontyard for three years,” he said. “There is a great sense of family. . . . I think she has always chosen plays that resound socially.”

LeFave, a San Francisco native, never studied theater formally, but has been performing onstage since age 17; his first role was as Theseus in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “My sister is a captain in the Navy, so I’ve always been on the other side of the establishment,” he said. “She recently told me that, for her captainship, the FBI was investigating her, and they were asking if her brother was ‘still an actor.’ ”

Professionally, LeFave has divided his time between L.A. and New York; he’s been here for the past seven years, in part to be near Maggie, his 3 1/2-year-old daughter, and her mother, actress Mary Beth DeLucia. Like most actors, he’s bounced back and forth between theater and more lucrative work in independent films and series TV. In recent years, most of his work has been onstage.

It’s the typical actor’s story. “Please--I wonder about how my bills are going to get paid, I wonder whether I’m going to get another job,” he said. “I think you have to embrace that if you want to continue to be an actor. As I get older, there is that pressure--the thing is that everybody else is making a steady living, and you’re not.”

Despite his preference for theater, LeFave is unabashed about his Hollywood aspirations. “If you can make it in TV, you can tour the country doing great theater, and people will go to see you just because they saw you in a soap opera,” he said.

LeFave ruefully acknowledged, however, that the Theatricum Botanicum has, for better or worse, not become a showcase for actors with sitcom aspirations, as have many smaller theaters and comedy clubs around the city. “Yeah, you can do great Shakespeare, but can you get a laugh?” he said wryly.

While waiting for network executives to make the trip to Topanga Canyon, LeFave is creating his own comedy. He has a pending deal for a cooking show for “guys whose wives and girlfriends have dumped them,” called “Who Kneads Babes.” “I play host J.R. Fever, and I get letters from all over the country from guys who have been dumped, and I take a studio audience out to their house and cook up a dish,” he said.

“I think the best role I’d like to do is the next role,” LeFave mused. “I just want to keep doing this.”

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“THE CRUCIBLE,” Theatricum Botanicum, 1418 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. Dates: Saturdays, 4 p.m., through Aug. 29; Sundays, 7:30 p.m., through Sept. 20. Prices: $12-$17. Phone: (310) 455-3723.