HEAR, HEAR THE ART OF LISTENING HAS GIVEN STAR AND PLAYRIGHT A SUCCESSFUL WORKING RELATIONSHIP.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

WHEN ATHOL FUGARD talks, John Glover listens. And listens. And absorbs. And listens some more.

Fugard, the genial South African author of ``Master Harold ... and the Boys,'' has the gift both of gab and insight. Glover, who is starring in Fugard's latest play, ``Sorrows and Rejoicings,'' has learned when silence is golden.

``How can you compete with Athol?'' says Glover, star of such films as ``52 Pick Up'' ``Batman & Robin'' and the WB series ``Smallville.'' ``He's a poet, and he talks like a poet. I watch other actors in rehearsal going, 'Blah, blah, blah.' I think, 'Just shut up and listen to Athol.' ''

On stage, of course, it is Glover who gets to talk, delivering Fugard's lengthy uninterrupted speeches (but don't call them monologues!). Then everybody listens.

In ``Sorrows,'' directed by the author at the Mark Taper Forum, Glover plays Dawid Olivier, an exiled South African poet beloved by two women. The women, one black and one white, meet after Dawid's funeral. Dawid is recalled in flashbacks - as a healthy, idealistic young man; a sick and dying 50-year-old; and at other key points in his life.

Many people, one voice

The character is a composite. Fugard has known several poets who lived in exile. Another acquaintance was a businessman from Johannesburg who, upon learning he was dying of cancer, returned to his homeland. For all the conflict his characters experience over South Africa's upheaval, love of country is a feeling the author understands.

``I remember returning to South Africa after a spell overseas,'' says Fugard, who divides his time between South Africa and San Diego. ``I wasn't in exile. I've never been in exile, but I remember landing in Johannesburg and speaking to an immigration officer in Afrikaans. That night in my notebook, I wrote, 'It was like kissing my mother.' Speaking Afrikaans. The phrase of Dawid's is actually from my notebook.''

When Fugard was looking for his Dawid, Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey where ``Sorrows'' would premiere, suggested Glover. She particularly recommended the film version of Terrence McNally's play ``Love! Valour! Compassion!'' which has Glover doing double duty, playing twins (Glover won a Tony award for the same role in the play's Broadway production.)

Suitably impressed by the actor's ability to transform, Fugard sent Glover the script. Dawid is seen in flashback as Fugard essentially tells the story backward through memory. The actor has several lengthy speeches addressed to the play's three other characters, but they never answer him. These are scenes, insists Glover, not monologues.

``His writing seems to get lodged in your soul somehow,'' says Glover. ``It gets in and it's powerful and intimidating. It requires a passion and an honesty and a trust, and if I think about it too much, I'll panic myself.

``I read ('Sorrows and Rejoicings'), and I had no idea how I could play it,'' he adds, ``so I figured I had to do it.''

``A lovely answer,'' says Fugard with a laugh. The two men are sitting in a conference room before a ``Sorrows'' preview. ``The remark of his reflects a total absence of complacency about the challenge of the role, and that remains with us to this day. In the rehearsal room this afternoon, there was John fraught with fear and trembling once again, to use Kierkegaard's famous expression of existential angst.''

Fugard breaks off. ``God, I'm talking too much.''

Returns Glover: ``I don't think so.''

There's an easy rapport between Glover, 57, and Fugard, 69, regardless of who is doing the talking. Although this play marks the first time the two men have worked together, the Taper engagement is their third go-round with ``Sorrows'' following productions at the McCarter in May 2001 and at New York's Second Stage Theatre in February.

``The working relationship with him has become so intimate and personal. I think I am hyper-sensitive to just any little shift in his mood in relationship to the work and the challenge he might be facing that night,'' says Fugard. ``We have never stopped working on this role, and I must say that he is joined in that incredible excitement and openness to adventure by (co-star) Judith Light.''

``But, Athol, you bring that out in us,'' replies Glover, ``because you're never satisfied. You keep pushing us further and further.''

Fugard: ``I think we've actually zeroed in on the real targets of this play. Don't you John?''

Glover: ``I think so.'' He laughs. ``Until tomorrow's notes.''

Retired, but yet not

Fugard's last visit to the Taper's stage was in 1997 when he both starred in and directed his two-character play ``Valley Song.'' After his next play, the autobiographical ``The Captain's Tiger,'' Fugard announced he was retiring from acting.

The decision has not, however, meant slowing down. After spending the summer in America, he'll teach classes in theater and the classics at Trinity College and University College of Dublin, Ireland. Then it's back to South Africa, where he'll get to work on his next play.

``Sorrows and Rejoicings,'' meanwhile, represents another turned page: Fugard says it will be his last venture as a director.

``Declining energies and time, and a lot of work to be done writing, which is the essential Athol Fugard,'' he explains. ``It's also my 70th birthday present to myself. I've already experienced pangs of doubt and uncertainty because nothing quite equals the adventure of sitting down at a table and reading through a play for the first time. You're like a captain. I'm going to miss that, but my life will put itself together.''

Asked who might occupy the captain's position at subsequent rehearsal room tables, Fugard once again acknowledges his ``Sorrows and Rejoicings'' leading man. Glover, Fugard reckons, would make an excellent director.

``Coming out of the intimacy and the trust in our relationship, John has felt, and rightly so, free to make very discreet observations about the world on stage,'' says Fugard. ``I've realized he has a very acute eye and sense of theater, and I've said as much to him.''

Any interest from Glover?

``Oh, my dear, yeah, I'm interested,'' says Glover. ``But it's very intimidating. Maybe I'd have to do it.''

SORROWS AND REJOICINGS

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through June 30.

Tickets: $30 to $44. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Judith Light and John Glover

Craig Schwartz/Photographer