By Harry Haun
29 Oct 2004

Noises Off Tony winner Katie Finneran, currently before the cameras as Will Ferrell's wife in Nicole Kidman's "Bewitched," was staunchly Scott Ellis: "I think it's one of the best things he's done. It's the way you play your people and how you focus. That's the hardest thing to do, especially when they're talking over each other. I heard what every single one of them said. I knew where to look, where to listen—that's great direction."

It being a feast for character actors, you can imagine others of those hearty breed were in attendance. Some bolted from rehearsals—Dana Ivey from The Rivals, Kate Reinders from Good Vibrations, Amy Irving from Celadine, the new Charles Evered play bowing at the George Street Playhouse with Michael Countryman. Late arriving from their previews: Frank Wood and J. Smith Cameron from God of Hell, Matthew Broderick from The Foreigner. Also in attendance: Simon Jones, Tom Toner, Theoni V. Aldredge, John Slattery, Ed Harris, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Louis Zorich, Tony Roberts, Kate Burton and playwrights Kenneth Lonergan and Paula Vogel.

Aldredge was asked if he knew what he and Gaines, the lone dissenter who sits next to him on the jury, have in common. The answer: Henry Fonda roles. Gaines did the part Fonda had in the film, and Fonda got his Oscar for the part Aldredge originated in On Golden Pond. "Do you know who that was written for?" Aldredge shot back. "Melvyn Douglas. Melvyn looked at it—he was in his 80s then—and passed. `I could never remember all the lines,' he said, and that's how I got to audition for the part—and get it."

Geer, who sits on the jury three seats down from his old Side Man co star Mastro but never says a word to him during the whole play, plays the milquetoast bank clerk—Juror #2—and does it in a way that gently evokes John Fiedler, who squeaked out the role in the 1957 flick. "I wish that John were here because I know he's still alive," said Geer.

(The only other survivors of the film's jury are both Jacks—Klugman and Warden.)

Special guest of the evening was Larkin Ford, who, under his real name of Will West, originated the role of Juror #12—the advertising guy—in the 50-minute, 50-year-old "Studio One" broadcast which won three Emmys. (He is profiled by this reporter Monday in The Sun.)

At 83, Ford is the sole survivor of that show—a prize bauble from television's golden age—and at the party he made a point of meeting his Roundabout counterpart, the 35-year-old Trese who, like West, is last in the alphabetical listing of the show's cast.

Ford's special distinction, however, didn't cut him much ice in getting a place on a real jury: "All my life I'd never been called for jury duty, but about ten years ago I was called so I went down and I was selected on a panel and put in the box and the question came up, `Have you ever served on a jury before?' I said, `Well, Your Honor, I have to confess that I have and I haven't. I played in a television show called Twelve Angry Men.' He said, `Dismissed.' Instantly. He assumed that I'd know too much about the process."