BRINGING OUT THE `BEAST' IN PETERSEN AS SURVIVOR.

Byline: Kinney Littlefield Orange County Register

Ask William Petersen which fate he prefers - man-eating squid, sex-crazed home invaders or nightly nervous breakdown?

To Petersen, the squid seems sanest.

Currently going nearly nuts six nights a week on Broadway, as the mentally maimed Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in Tennessee Williams' ``Night of the Iguana,'' Petersen also stars as solid, squid-busting fisherman Whip Dalton in the NBC miniseries ``The Beast,'' premiering tonight on NBC. The two-part ``Beast'' is based on the book by Peter Benchley, author of ``Jaws.''

And to complete an unusual stage-screen-TV trifecta, Petersen also plays a strung-out dad who's powerless to save his family from wacko slashers in the movie thriller ``Fear.''

``Yeah, I'm doing pretty much the only three conflicts you have in drama,'' Petersen, 43, said from New York on Monday, sounding weary on the one day ``Iguana,'' which runs through May 19, is dark. `` `The Beast' is man vs. nature, `Fear' is man vs. man, and `Night of the Iguana' is man vs. himself, because Shannon's demon, his spook, his enemy, is himself.

``Now I've got 56 nervous breakdowns done, only 32 more to go,'' Petersen said of the taxing, sexually and spiritually tormented role in ``Iguana,'' which conjures memories of his emotionally unstrung cult movie roles in ``To Live and Die in L.A.'' and ``Manhunter'' in 1985 and 1986, respectively.

``That's why it was good to play Whip (in `The Beast'), who's just a great solid everyman, an average Joe with dignity who finds himself in above-average circumstances,'' said Petersen. ``Plus, I've been a fisherman all my life. I grew up lake fishing in the Midwest.

``And I loved `Jaws.' I saw it in 1975 when I was a logger up near the Idaho border. I remember it well. I took my wife at the time and 6-month-old daughter into Lewiston to buy groceries, and `Jaws' was opening. We were glad there were just rivers around us. It scared us; it transported us.''

In actuality, there are no jaws in ``The Beast'' - just the de rigueur dining utensils of a 90-foot giant squid: eight sucker-studded arms, two hide-ripping tentacles and a flesh-shearing beak.

When baby squid is sighted off fictional fishing community Graves Point in Washington state, and two divers disappear in a cloud of blood, the big squid squawk begins. Nosy marine biologists, flirtatious Coast Guard lieutenant Kathryn Marcus (Karen Sillas), greedy harbor master Schuyler Graves (Charles Martin Smith) and drunken poacher Lucas Coven (Larry Drake) join the chase.

Whip, whose wife, Charlotte, vanished at sea 10 years back, promises daughter Dana (Missy Crider) he'll stay on dry land - where his hots for the comely lieutenant heat up. Soon, though, Whip is sucked into pursuing Mama Squid on his fishing boat, the Privateer - and the ``Beast''-aganza begins.

``You know the ocean is really the last frontier, the last wilderness,'' Petersen said of the Beast's stomping grounds. ``We know what's in space, but not what's at the bottom of the ocean.

``When I was 11, the big rite of passage in our family was you could take out the little three horsepower motor boat to fish. And I remember taking it out and hooking the bait and thinking, `What if I get a huge fish, what will happen to me?' It's like why do men climb mountains? It's the adrenalin, the fear.

``And frankly, there's something that's intrinsically male - excuse me for saying this - about the hunt. I used to hunt, although I don't anymore. I liked the hunt but not the killing.''

Filmed off Sydney, Australia, on a tight TV budget, ``The Beast'' had a stern taskmaster - mother nature. Storms sank a prop buoy and delayed shooting. Ocean currents had a mind of their own.

``I mean, picture us on the ocean with a camera boat on one current, trying to shoot another boat coming in on another current. Now I understand why `Waterworld' (Kevin Costner's disastrously overbudget apocalyptic water movie) took so long. Of course, if this were a feature film, we'd still be down there shooting - it would be `Waterworld II.' ''

No matter how worked up the inhabitants of Graves Point get in ``The Beast,'' it's Mama Squid who has the biggest hissy fit as she fights to protect her hapless baby. Indeed, ``The Beast'' seems to carry some neat subtext about motherly instincts and female revenge.

``Yeah, that's all in there,'' Petersen said. ``Peter Benchley comes from a lineage of humorous writing, from his grandfather Robert Benchley. `Jaws' and `The Beast' are nice summer reads - you know, lay on the beach and read about the shark. But it's also frothy with all those metaphors.''

And ``The Beast'' seems to carry messages about our part in the great food chain. For every scene of prowling squid, there's one of human characters chomping, noshing or fixing to do the same. Drake's seedy poacher dilutes his fish stew - no tentacles in evidence - with whiskey. And whether it's a sandwich or beef stew or rigatoni parmesan, Whip is always ready to chow down.

``Yeah, I mentioned that to the director (Jeff Bleckner). He said, `Oh I don't think anyone will notice' and all I could say was, `Well, at least let's change the menu.' I mean we shot like six of those scenes in a row. With TV, you shoot everything you can at the same location, out of sequence.

``But I loved those cooking scenes with Missy (Crider). I'm a single parent; my daughter is like my best friend, so I'm comfortable with that. When my daughter would come and visit me in L.A., she'd bring a friend and I'd get up in the morning and fix them breakfast and bag lunches. It's like when I go back to my mom's house in Chicago and all she does is try to feed me.''

THE FACTS The show: ``The Beast.''

Starring: William Petersen, Karen Sillas, Charles Martin Smith, Larry Drake and Missy Crider.

When: 9 p.m. Sunday and Monday.

Channel: NBC (Channel 4).

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo:Drawn to the thrill of the hunt, Whip (William Peters en) becomes obsessed with pursuing a giant squid in ``The Beast.''