*

Janeane Garofalo takes a tart, tangy sip of her Red Bull — the Large Economy Size, it looks like, but she says no: "There is a 20-ouncer. I've already had one today. This is my second one so that's why I'm down to 16 ounces." Now, if only she can wrap up this pre-show interview in time for a fast smoke, it’ll be Showtime!

The show in question is not the liberal-slanted standup she's been slinging around comedy clubs since 1985 but rather a fascinating first-play by Erika Sheffer called Russian Transport, which has just been extended till March 24 at the Acorn on Theatre Row. It has transported her to a place she has never been before — onto a stage in a play — not a second too soon, it being her 20th year as a practicing actress.

Through all that, theatre somehow eluded her — and still would, if she had her way. Fortunately, Scott Elliott, artistic director of The New Group, saw the stage critter that was trying to get out and more or less dragooned her into Russian Transport, which he was casting and directing. Far from a liability, he saw her past as fortifying the actress within. "That's the whole thing about her," Elliott insists. "Her standup has made her fearless. She just jumps in and rips it apart. That's what I wanted."

She certainly rules the roost in Russian Transport as Diana — Diana the Fortress, you could call her — the tough backbone of a middle-class Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, handily dominating her husband Misha (Daniel Oreskes) and their assimilated teenagers, Alex (Raviv Ullman) and Mira (Sarah Steele). She herself opens the door to one person who challenges her authority, her brother from the old country, Boris (Morgan Spector), who soon casts a sinister shadow over the clan. Sheffer's play is the home-front tussle that follows.

"I still don't know how this happened," Garofalo admits, shaking her head in blissful disbelief. "Scott had my agent send me the script. I thought it was a mistake. I asked my agent, 'Did you mean to send me a play?' He said, 'Yeah. Look at the part of Diana.' I said, 'The Russian immigrant mom who speaks Russian and with an accent?' I loved the play, but I thought, 'I can't do this. I'm not of the caliber as the rest of the cast. I can't be in The New Group. That's the real deal there.' So I passed. Then Scott said, 'Just meet me for coffee anyway.' By the end of coffee, I was doing it.

"Scott is easily the best director I've ever worked with, what I always wished a director would be like. He just says the perfect thing. He also makes you feel, 'Oh, you can do it.' When I met him for coffee to tell him I wasn't going to do it, he just said, 'No, you're doing it. You can do it. No, you'll be fine. It'll be great.' I asked him, 'Well, what makes you think I can do it?' He just said, 'I dunno. You're doing it.' It was just one of those things, and he makes you feel through the whole process 'You got this.' Whether you do or not, he makes you feel this is within your ability."