In an interview given many years ago, Mickey Rourke stated that before starring in the movie "Diner," he had never met someone like Steve Guttenberg. What the actor meant by this was that growing up on the streets of Miami, he had never met someone so good-natured and essentially innocent as Mr. Guttenberg, a genuinely nice Jewish boy from Massapequa.
These qualities, which brought Mr. Guttenberg an unlikely stardom in the 1980s, were on full display last week during a preview of his new play, "Tales From the Guttenberg Bible," which runs through Aug. 27 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. The work, which is a kind of dramatized memoir of his time in Hollywood, is both funny and disarmingly tender. It is also a rousing good time.
This fast-moving play begins with Steve Guttenberg's high school days, when he takes an interest in acting and befriends another actor named Michael Bell. Dreamy-eyed about movies, Steve -- at the age of 17 -- heads out to Hollywood, promising his parents that it will just be for two weeks. There he is both nurtured and indulged by Mr. Bell, who looks after him like a big brother, providing everything from housing to acting jobs.
This sort of good luck will become a theme of Mr. Guttenberg's play (he seemed to inspire kindness from others). But luck, of course, does not fully explain his success, which instead, as we watch the narrative unfold, is in triangulation with large doses of chutzpah and talent.
In just one of the many zany stories he tells, the young Steve, loitering outside a major studio on his arrival in Hollywood, creates a fake employee card and begins to punch in every day, cheerfully waving to the security guard as he goes by. Not content to simply walk around and soak up the atmosphere of the studio, he eventually occupies (squats in, to be accurate) an empty office building on the lot, from which he calls his agents looking for work.
He is, at the time, approximately 18 years old.
His career, and the stories, come like a whirlwind. Just a few years later, for example, he is on a plane to Portugal with Laurence Olivier to film "The Boys From Brazil."
But it is "Diner" with which Mr. Guttenberg finally hits it big, and his improvs with other cast members make it into the film and distinguish him as a comedic presence. This leads to "Police Academy," a surprise blockbuster that renders him a bankable star. Soon he is flying with the (erstwhile) Bruce Jenner in his private jet, presenting at the Academy Awards, and living like royalty with Tom Selleck and Ted Danson during the filming of "Three Men and a Baby."
The play includes dozens of characters, and the tiny supporting cast -- consisting primarily of Arnie Burton, Carine Montbertrand, and Dan Domingues -- do yeoman's work in embodying countless agents, studio heads, and famous actors, all with lightning-fast costume changes. Ms. Montbertrand, while running to another costume change, even shouts, in a scripted aside, "Can't this theater afford any more actors?"
But of course the supporting actors are having a grand time, jumping from characters like Robert Evans to Gregory Peck, to Jessica Tandy and to Hume Cronyn, all within a few moments.
Though this is a Hollywood memoir, don't expect much dirt or gossip. There is a brief story about an audition where a rapacious producer asks Steve to take his shirt off and do push-ups. Hmm. But generally his past is remembered in affectionate caricatures and with a wide-eyed awe at all he has seen and done.
It is the theme of family, however, that gives Mr. Guttenberg's play its gravitas. (Without it, in fact, the play might have been a fun but somewhat frivolous Hollywood romp.) His affection for his parents, and family life in general, is tenderly dramatized. It seems yet another stroke of good luck that he had the rock of family underneath him -- and as foil to the Hollywood lifestyle. (It cannot be a coincidence that the sum total of decadence in the Guttenberg tales is a skinny-dipping party at Valerie Perrine's house.)
There is a moving coda about his late father, Stanley, delivered in tears by Mr. Guttenberg (which in turn had some in the audience in tears). How he will summon this sort of emotional heft every performance for the next month is anyone's guess. But with his fun, moving new play, I'm willing to bet the standing ovation he received will become a nightly event.
Tickets start at $69.99. Showtimes are 7 and 8 p.m., except Mondays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Wednesdays and Sundays. More is at baystreet.org.
