Marsha Mason has taken a brief "vacation" from her recurring role as Sherry, John Mahoney's brassy girlfriend on NBC's hit "Frasier," to return to what she loves best: live theater. What she loves best, that is, when she's not farming sun-drenched acres in New Mexico or bravely racing souped up NASCAR doozies. With all the Oscar madness, Mason, a four time Academy Award nominee (not to mention two Emmy nominations), is highly qualified to speak of being in close-but-no-cigar situations. The gutsy Mason gives a hearty laugh at her luck on Oscar night and, with a very straight face, says, "Really it was an honor just to be nominated. I always felt like a winner just to be recognized for my acting work."
It's Mason's acting work onstage, currently as condemned murder Selena Goodall in the Blue Light Theater Company's off-Broadway production of Michael Cristofer's Amazing Grace, that's winning newfound recognition -- and critical accolades -- for her talent. She describes Amazing Grace as a play about morality, forgiveness, healing and redemption. She had faith in it and has finally succeeded in helping to bring it to New York.
After a reading in Seattle three years ago, Mason struck gold with the play two and a half years ago in its world premiere engagement at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Cristofer, who won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his acclaimed The Shadow Box, took the [1995-1996] American Theater Critics Association Outstanding New Play Award.
Mason heads an outstanding ensemble cast -- which also features Carlin Glynn, a Tony winner for The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, in a standout role -- as Southern housewife sentenced to capital punishment for the murder of four people in her care.
Mason says the play could be torn from recent headlines surrounding the number of women on death row or executed, "but Michael's inspiration came from watching a 1984 TV interview with Velma Barfield, who was about to be executed for similar crimes... What fascinated Michael the most was Velma's ordinariness and the feeling that she could have been anyone's grandmother. He couldn't imagine circumstances under which she'd commit the murders she was about to be executed for."
Cristofer has made changes since Pittsburgh, but, Mason says, "There aren't major, huge elements that are changed, but, in terms of how Selena is portrayed, there are big differences. Also, in Pittsburgh, it was much more about getting it the play on its feet. Now, I've had the time to work on my character. And when you have as big and as complicated character as Selena, you need time."
In a tour-de-force role where she is hardly off stage, Mason says, "I've drawn on other characters I've played to create Selena. Her goal is to find a reason for living, to survive. I've been there. For almost four years, I didn't work. Thankfully, I didn't have to resort to such measures. I found salvation in doing something totally different, including being quite a daredevil. Maybe my unemployment was karma, or my hitting 45 that benchmark in an actress' career when you can't play the ingenues and you're not quite ready for character roles."
In a blunt assessment of Hollywood reality, which is not unsurprising coming from Mason, she adds, "Also, my divorce from Neil Simon may have effected the situation. Many felt I was only good because of Neil. They forgot what I'd done before we married. There were those who, for ten years, thought of us as the golden couple. They were upset when we split." Pressed on the issue, Mason would say only that Simon needed a 24-hour wife, and she still had career goals.
Mason, reared in St. Louis, did stellar work at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater (ACT) and acted in soaps before getting "the role of a lifetime," playing a prostitute in her third film, "Cinderella Liberty," and her first Academy Award nomination. In 1974, she debuted on Broadway in Neil Simon's The Good Doctor, marrying the recently-widowed playwright after a whirlwind courtship. Mason would get a second Oscar nomination for "The Goodbye Girl," which Simon wrote for her.
With such a track record, you'd think Mason would be in great demand. She found she wasn't. Finally, "depressed and feeling used up," Mason relocated to New York to revive her theater career and direct. She visited with old friends and almost immediately was cast opposite Cherry Jones in the Roundabout Theater's revival of Tennessee Williams' The Night Of The Iguana, which received less-than enthusiastic reviews. But Mason and Jones came out looking pretty good.
Back to Amazing Grace: Mason explained that "the extraordinary thing about Velma and a majority of other women on death row, is they are either abused and/or become drug addicts at an early age. And I'm not referring to just street drugs. Velma had some odyssey. And in the persona of Selena we examine every nook and cranny of her psyche. So this role is an actor's dream. For someone who loves acting as much as I do, it's also a spiritual experience. I get to work on all twelve cylinders."
The latter is a reference to another of this tiny dynamo's vocations: high-speed racing at speeds in excess of 200 miles an hour. When not acting, directing, and racing, "I actually lead a quiet life farming 200 acres in New Mexico. I love the outdoors and working the fields, where we grow and experiment with medicinal herbs."
How do you find out about these things?
"That's the world of Santa Fe," Mason laughs. "A large number of people there are educated in agriculture, soil conservation, and how to acheive a balanced ecology. Recently I attended a soil fertility conference. That's something I never thought I'd be doing, but I had a great time and learned a ton! Now chemistry makes sense to me for the first time!"
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