SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: ACT's 'Scorched' a dark path with by positive aim
by Chad Jones
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
You'll always find David Strathairn in the Avenue of the Giants - not among actual redwood trees but in the halls of Redwood High School, his Larkspur alma mater.
The school has set up an alumni hall of fame, and Strathairn is duly honored for his achievements as an actor, most notably for screen work like his Academy Award-nominated turn as Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" or his Emmy-winning performance in HBO's "Temple Grandin."
Though pleased to be honored in his hometown (he grew up in Larkspur but was actually born in San Francisco), Strathairn isn't sure he's worthy of, as he puts it, a "shrine."
"The nature of what I do is very public," Strathairn says. "But the engine that drives it is publicity. Just because you put on a red nose doesn't mean you've accomplished more than someone like my friend Drummond Pike, the founder of the Tides Foundation. He was a classmate at Redwood High, and he deserves to be enshrined. Actors? I don't know. When you get right down to it ..."
... With nearly 70 feature films to his credit and countless TV appearances (most recently on Syfy's "Alphas"), the 63-year-old Strathairn doesn't limit himself to meaty movie sets. He always makes time to come back to the stage.
"Theater is what I like to do most," Strathairn says. "It feels the most organic. I like it better than all the other things."
His last San Francisco stage appearance was in 1996 in American Conservatory Theater's "The Tempest." His wizard Prospero helped reopen the Geary Theater after extensive repair work due to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Now he's back at ACT in "Scorched," a thriller by Lebanese Canadian writer Wajdi Mouawad.
In an empty ACT rehearsal hall, Strathairn's rough good looks make him seem either approaching a Zen state of calm or just about to explode from anxiety. He's soft-spoken and, though friendly, seems as if he'd prefer to be quiet.
On the subject of "Scorched," which film audiences may recognize as the basis for the Oscar-nominated film "Incendies," Strathairn does have a lot to say. In the drama, he plays a notary who becomes the key piece in a mystery involving two adult children discovering a maze of family secrets that leads them to the Middle East...
Scorched: By Wajdi Mouawad. Directed by Carey Perloff. Through March 11. American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., S.F. $10-$85 (subject to change). (415) 749-2228. www. act-sf.org.
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