ESTELLE PARSONS, UNVEILED `SALOME' REVEALS STAR'S DIRECTORIAL SIDE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

Sitting at a restaurant, enjoying the sea air that she takes in whenever she is on this coast, Estelle Parsons ruminates on the life that she didn't choose.

``I thought originally I'd play tennis all my life or ski all my life,'' says the 78-year-old actor/director, an Oscar winner (for ``Bonnie and Clyde'') who also spent several years playing Roseanne Barr's mother on ``Roseanne.''

``I'm not that good a tennis player or skier. I just liked (acting) a lot, and thought, `Ah, I could do this. I'm forever occupied with this.'

``Of course, I'm not really occupied with anything but the theater,'' Parsons corrects herself. ``That's the only thing that keeps me from watching the clock. I could spend all day in the theater and not even realize that the day has gone by.''

We're having lunch on a Monday, and the staged reading of Oscar Wilde's ``Salome,'' directed by Parsons and starring Al Pacino, is already in previews at the Wadsworth Theatre in Brentwood. The day, therefore, will not be spent in that theater or any other. Talking stage instead of working it will have to suffice.

A visit with Parsons is replete with offbeat musings, the occasional unexpected left turn and plenty of frankness. But wherever else a subject may lead her, Parsons will inevitably circle back to a few familiar strains.

1. Give her an interesting and gifted actor to bounce ideas off of and Parsons, the former artistic director of the Actors Studio, is in no danger of clock-watching.

2. Pacino, the star and unbilled co-director - with Parsons - of the current ``Salome: A Presentation With Music,'' falls squarely into the ``interesting and gifted'' category.

3. Salome, Salome. There's just something about playwright Oscar Wilde, lusty old King Herod and the titular temptress with those seven veils that's enough to keep a troupe of actors going for, well, pretty much perpetuity.

``I think this piece is as great as Shakespeare. In some ways, even better than Shakespeare,'' says Parsons. ``You can't imagine how deeply it resonates in other work. (Wilde) wrote it to be read, not to be produced as a show.

``I love it because it's so decadent. Theatrically you can't lose with it, you know?''continues Parsons. ``I never think we get it quite as decadent as it could be. Some day we will, if we keep doing it. Do we keep on doing it forever? I don't know.''

Things do appear to be leaning in that direction.

Constructed as a kind of work in progress, ``Salome'' has had performances at venues from Brooklyn to Poughkeepsie to Broadway. With limited runs and actors permitted to hold scripts, star performers have drifted in and out as schedules permit.

The fluctuating lineup over the past seven years has featured David Strathairn, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Marisa Tomei, Mary Beth Hurt, Edward Herrmann, Aidan Quinn and B.D. Wong, among others.

``It really works because they're all terribly gifted and developed,'' says Parsons. ``You couldn't just take anybody in and out.''

The constant has been Pacino, whose thing for ``Salome'' predates even Parsons'. The actor, who frequently sandwiches returns to the New York stage between film gigs, has been working and reworking Herod since the late 1980s. He performed it on Broadway opposite Sheryl Lee for director Robert Allan Ackerman in 1992 and, later in the 1990s, partnered with Parsons on ``Salome'' when she was running the Actors Studio.

To hear Parsons tell it, Pacino could program his very life around productions of ``Salome.'' ``He's one of these people who, 24 hours a day, is thinking about what will work, what won't work, what's there, what isn't there. All really great people in the theater are like that.''

Does Parsons herself also fall into that category?

``If I'm acting, yeah, but I have a family,'' returns Parsons, who has three children. ``It was never my idea to be a big actress or a big anything. I just kind of wandered through life doing whatever looked interesting to do.''

The Wadsworth production, which stars Kevin Anderson, Roxanne Hart and newcomer Jessica Chastain in the title role, dovetails with Pacino preparing his experiences with Herod for a film documentary - in the same way his 1996 film ``Looking for Richard'' charted his experiences with Shakespeare's King Richard III.

Parsons appeared in ``Looking for Richard'' and counts herself a fan of both the project and its maker. ``I thought, `This is no ordinary actor. This is a really idiosyncratic imagination,' so I said `I'll work with you, but only if we do everything together.' So we do.

``The way I work when I direct, it's always collaborative,'' she continues. ``Because I know acting is an art form, so I empower the actors to be the leaders rather than me be the leader. I empower them to take chances, or I try to. They ask me something, and I say, `I don't know. Work it out.' ''

So how's this for empowerment? The first time Jessica Chastain met Parsons to discuss the role of Salome - last played on Broadway by Marisa Tomei - she was asked to get up and dance. No veils or nudity required for this audition - although the role might include some disrobing. Parsons just wanted to see how the young actress moved.

``I was completely horrified. It's an actor's nightmare to have someone say, `Let's just see you shake it,' '' says Chastain. ``But I just thought, `You know, I spent four years in Juilliard doing really stupid things and making a fool out of myself. I can spend one more day.' I'm really not a dancer, and I'm incredibly self-conscious, but I really wanted the role.''

Chastain has since worked with Parsons on an adaptation of Flaubert's ``Madame Bovary'' and has come to get a sense of the director's methods.

`She's like a therapist,'' Chastain says. ``I'll show up and say, `Is she angry here?' and Estelle will say, `I don't know. Why don't you tell me?' It's incredibly frustrating. And at the end, when you've found the answer yourself, you find she knew the answer the entire time.''

When the audition dance anecdote is recalled to Parsons, the director replies, ``Of course she didn't hesitate.''

``It's a way to find out about people. Someone who says, `Well, I'm not really prepared; I'm not really ready' - this is not what an actor does,'' says Parsons. ``When an actor gets a chance to act, they act. That's my theory. If we're here to work, let's work.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

SALOME: A PRESENTATION WITH MUSIC

Where: Wadsworth Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through May 14.

Tickets: $63 to $93. [phone], www.wadsworththeatre.com.

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Photo:

``I think this piece is as great as Shakespeare; in some ways, even better than Shakespeare,'' says Estelle Parsons of ``Salome,'' her production at the Wadsworth Theatre.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer