BY LUCIA MAURO
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It’s late afternoon, and Mike Nussbaum is casually sipping an iced tea at a Lakeview coffee shop. His cordial and accommodating demeanor belie the fact that he’s been up since about 4 a.m. to meet the demands of a dawn shoot for a short independent film called Flying Away. His reason for rising so early to star in a non-commercial movie?
"When I heard that [actor] Marc Vann was going to be in it, I wanted to be involved in the project," says Nussbaum. "I admire Marc’s work and was happy that I would have the opportunity to perform with him."
Nussbaum, a familiar face on Chicago stages and on the big and small screens, regards theatre as an art form in which respectful working relationships are cultivated. His longtime professional affiliation with playwright David Mamet attests to this commitment to the artistic process and the people behind the creativity. Despite receiving national recognition for roles in hit movies like Men in Black and House of Games, as well as the Broadway production of Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, Nussbaum prefers the supportive environment of Chicago theatre. He grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood and resides in Lincoln Park.
"My roots and my family are here," he says. "For a long time, I would go to L.A. for three or four months and then to New York. You go to L.A. for the money and to New York for the cachet. But the work was never as satisfying as it is in Chicago. Here it’s about the work. In L.A. and New York, it’s about being seen because the reward is so huge for getting noticed. Yet I’ve always believed that acting comes down to serving the play.
"There’s a community that’s stronger here than anywhere else. And it’s genuine."
Nussbaum just completed playing the role of Donny, the junk shop owner, and co-directing with Brian Russell in American Theatre Company’s (ATC) remount of Mamet’s American Buffalo. In this refreshingly non-frenetic production, the actor portrayed Donny as a world-weary old hippie (complete with bandanna and long gray ponytail), who struggles with being a father figure to the troubled kid Bobby. But Nussbaum is quick to add, with a chuckle, that Donny is "an old man scrambling for a score."
Interestingly, the ATC production was one of the more naturally conversational interpretations of a Mamet play due, in large part, to Nussbaum’s understated approach. His Donny let his eyes and deceptively laidback gestures speak to the audience as much as his terse lines. Nussbaum starred as the more volatile Teach in the first full-scale production of American Buffalo that opened the St. Nicholas Theatre in 1975.
He recalls in the program: "It was a dream cast. William H. Macy played Bobby, and the incomparable J.J. Johnston played Donny. For me, J.J. will always be the quintessential Donny, a South Side Irishman, former prize fighter and a man who had, shall we say, a few brushes with the law. J.J. brought a powerful, authentic delivery to Mamet’s rich lines that still resonates in the memory of all who were there."
Nussbaum reiterates his admiration for Johnston and notes that, in taking over the role of Donny, he incorporated "the inflections of an Albany Park Jew" into the character and felt it worked.
"The way you deliver Mamet’s words," he explains, "must come from within your own rhythms."
While Nussbaum insists that he doesn’t know all the intricacies of how Mamet’s stylized lines should be read, he can speak from experience and his ongoing connection to the Chicago-born playwright. "If you damage the rhythms of the language," he notes, "you’re damaging the play."
He then clarifies that, contrary to popular belief, "Mamet doesn’t have staccato rhythms. It’s hyper-natural speech. He uses the same constructions and the same poetry, in a sense, of the street. You need to make Mamet’s rhythms your own without altering the pauses."
Nussbaum recalls being in rehearsals with Mamet (for both film and theatre) in which the writer-director can be "very open" and talk about why one word should be stressed over another. On the other hand, according to Nussbaum, "if an actor obscures the lines or the meaning of the play, David becomes very rigid."
He also points out, based on the first rehearsals for American Buffalo 26-years-ago, that Mamet was very clear about emphasizing the old man-young man/teacher-student relationship rather than the heist.
Regardless of the mellow and naturalistic style of speaking Nussbaum applies to Donny, the actor-director remains a kinetic presence on stage.
"I think the reason why I haven’t enjoyed a big film career," he theorizes, "is that I really don’t know how to bring it down for the camera. On stage, I’m fully committed."
But his film and TV credits are quite substantial and include The Water Engine, Field of Dreams, Fatal Attraction, Losing Isaiah, Sailorman, Separate But Equal, Brooklyn Bridge, "L.A. Law" and "The X-Files."
Nevertheless, it’s in the live performing arena where Nussbaum feels most fulfilled. He first encountered Mamet in 1964 at Hull House on Belmont and Broadway.
"David was a 14-year-old kid helping behind the scenes," says Nussbaum, "and I was acting in Schisgal’s The Typist and the Tiger. I have absolutely no recollection of him. It wasn’t until some years later that I met him at St. Nicholas. We also did a play together in which he was an actor. I used to tease him about not being a very good actor.
"But I knew he was a gifted writer, especially when I read Duck Variations and was struck by the language. It’s a jewel of a play about two old men trying to make sense out of their existence."
Describing Mamet as "truly chivalrous" and "one of the last men of honor," Nussbaum admires the playwright for his loyalty to his longtime colleagues. Mamet recently joined Nussbaum as the featured speaker at a benefit for American Theatre Company.
Before Nussbaum’s pivotal involvement with Hull House, he had put his acting dreams on hold to get married and have a family (playwright-director Susan Nussbaum is one of his three children).
"I wanted to be an actor since I was a child," he acknowledges. "But I wanted the American Dream: a home, a family and some security."
He married shortly after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. Nussbaum then applied to the Goodman School of Drama but could not get in at that time. So he decided to pursue a more "secure" career. He started a successful exterminator business and acted in community theatre. He credits Hull House’s director, Bob Sickinger–who established an adventurous theatre company comprised of the best semi-professional actors–with jumpstarting his career.
The Hull House theatre–which produced plays by Pinter, Ionesco and Beckett–was reviewed by the major dailies. "I think Hull House was a spring board for the renaissance of off-Loop theatre," says Nussbaum, who consistently achieved critical acclaim.
Not a big fan of light comedy, the actor developed his malleable style of acting at Hull House, which favored plays in the absurd and avant-garde tradition. By 1970, Nussbaum sold his share of the exterminator business and devoted himself full-time to theatre and film. He originated the roles of Richard in Life in the Theatre at Goodman, Aaronow in Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway, John in The Shawl at Lincoln Center (all by Mamet), Shlomo in Charles L. Mee’s Time to Burn at Steppenwolf and Marcus in Claudia Allen’s Winter (starring opposite Julie Harris) at Victory Gardens.
More recently, Nussbaum portrayed Mr. Green in Visiting Mr. Green at Northlight and Royal George, Judge Garvey in The Infidel at Steppenwolf and Hamm in Endgame at ATC, the latter one of his most challenging and multidimensional theatre experiences.
"Mamet focuses on the words and gives you very little stage directions," explains Nausbaum. "But Beckett gives you too many stage directions. When I was younger, I used to be offended by all those details. I felt they inhibited me. But it wasn’t until I performed with Estelle Parsons that I realized the importance of those extensive stage directions. She told me that she found the precision of the demands liberating. So when Beckett says to deliver a line 'violently,’ it was an enormous challenge that also made me get in touch with the complexity of the character."
Yet the actor believes that Mamet and Beckett, despite their divergent approaches, aim for a similar existentialist end. Nussbaum links Mamet with Pinter, who championed Mamet’s work (particularly Glengarry Glen Ross).
He cites as some of the most defining moments in his career the chance to collaborate with Mamet on Life in the Theatre, Endgame at ATC and Quartermaine in Quartermaine’s Terms at Northlight in which director B.J. Jones "drew a stillness from me I didn’t think I had."
Now Nussbaum finds himself revisiting career-making plays but taking on a different role. American Buffalo was the catalyst for this phenomenon. Next he will tackle the part of Shelley "The Machine" Levine in Steppenwolf’s upcoming production of Glengarry Glen Ross; then he portrays John of Gaunt in Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s staging of Richard II (having previously played York in Goodman’s Richard II).
"I don’t know how this happened," he exclaims, "but I feel good about it. I’ve spent so much time with these plays. I really understand the material."
Nussbaum says he loved going to the movies and listening to radio while growing up in Chicago. He admits that he tuned into every radio program Orson Welles did except "War of the Worlds"–one of his greatest regrets in life. "I used to impersonate Welles," he adds, "and I would write essays in his style."
When asked why theatre is such a relentless passion, Nussbaum modestly replies, "If I were to say what theatre meant in my life, it would sound pretentious. But I will say that the danger of live theatre is what’s so exciting for me. It’s that rush of adrenaline that feeds me. The danger is more interesting than the acclaim.
"And I enjoy working with young actors. Theatre keeps me young."