THEATER:’Pig Farm’ actor has sow know-how

Writers are advised to “write what you know,” and the same admonition might be applied to actors — particularly in the case of South Coast Repertory’s current production of “Pig Farm.”

When Steve Rankin dons the overalls and herds the swine (offstage, of course) in the black comedy, which closes its run Sunday, he knows whereof he performs.

Rankin, 55, grew up on a real pig farm in the 1950s — with some 200 porkers, along with 300 chickens and 50 cows — in the tiny village of Beason, Ill., population 90. For a good time on weekends, he’d drive into neighboring Waynesville, which boasted 100 souls.

“We had 365 acres,” Rankin recalled in a telephone interview from his Burbank home. “We were tenant farmers, about 40 miles from Springfield. Our family would split the proceeds with the property owners — they’d get two-thirds, and we’d have the remaining third, which all went into feed for the livestock,” pork bellies being a valuable commodity.

The last of six children, Rankin grew up with farming in his blood — until he was cast in the leading role of “Charley’s Aunt” at the age of 15. After this brief taste of acting, he says, “I never wanted to do anything else.”

And, for the past nearly 30 years, he hasn’t. Despite his mother’s hopes that he’d become an English teacher, Rankin immersed himself in theater, and picked up his fight director’s credential along the way.

He’s staged fights in many Broadway shows and also directed the action in “Pig Farm” and, as I put it in an earlier column, he “turns in an explosive performance as the farmer, striving passionately to preserve his porkers and clinging to his tiny segment of the American dream.”

“It’s a wonderful cast, and I’m having a great time,” Rankin said.

In playwright Greg Kotis’ “Pig Farm,” Rankin’s character is charged with counting the farm’s pigs so he may deliver an accurate account to the agent from the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s not something Rankin grew up with on his little plot of earth.

“All that came later, when the corporate farmers took over the mom-and-pop operations,” he said. “The most you can have is 500 pigs on one farm now.”

Nevertheless, it’s great fun to pretend he has thousands of them rooting around outside the Julianne Argyros Stage, although it’s exhausting work for all actors involved. Again, as I said in my review:

“Director Martin Benson pushes the comedic pedal to the metal and his actors respond with a vengeance, pumping up the volume and leaving all traces of credulity behind. They’re understandably exhausted at the final fadeout — as is the audience.”

And take it from Steve Rankin, pretending to run a pig farm is a lot more fun than actually doing it.