OSCAR-WORTHY LYNN REDGRAVE GOES WILDE AS LADY BRACKNELL IN 'EARNEST'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

More than half a century has passed since Michael Redgrave played Jack Worthing in the 1952 film version of Oscar Wilde's ``The Importance of Being Earnest.'' Now, in a production of ``Earnest'' directed by Sir Peter Hall that commences a mini U.S. tour at the Ahmanson Theatre, it's Sir Michael's younger daughter, Lynn Redgrave, who is above the title.

Lynn Redgrave will be playing the formidable Lady Bracknell, the imperious - and ever witty - dowager who temporarily makes life miserable for most of the characters in the comedy of manners. (``To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.'')

It's a role that has been coveted and played by every actress of a certain age from Joan Plowright and Margaret Rutherford to Shirley Knight and Maggie Smith, and - in an upcoming Broadway production - Diana Rigg. Judi Dench played Lady B. in the most recent film adaptation.

Family legacy or otherwise, Redgrave, 62, purports to having seen a staged ``Earnest'' perhaps three times. ``I never did see any of the men play Lady Bracknell,'' says Redgrave. ``I'm thrilled it's back in a woman's hands.

``Edith Evans (who appeared in the 1952 film) does cast sort of a long shadow over the role,'' continues Redgrave. ``Even people who don't remember the movie and don't know the play, they kind of think they remember sort of how she did it. She put such a stamp on it. Certainly when I accepted the job, it was sort of lurking there, but the moment I started looking at the text, she seemed so completely different to me. I'm not at all an Edith Evans type of actress. Suddenly, it didn't feel so frightening.''

Hall, who, prior to this had worked with nearly every acting Redgrave except Lynn, said part of the reason for staging yet another Earnest was the prospect of a fresh approach to Lady Bracknell.

``She's terribly good at reality. She has a tremendous honesty about her as an actress,'' Hall says of Redgrave. ``What she does tends to be extremely credible, not a comic turn. Lynn's Lady Bracknell is a very original creation.''

Unlike Hall's last Bracknell (he directed Dench in the role at a Royal National Theatre production more than 20 years ago), Redgrave is tall, a svelte 5 feet 10 inches. She promises a Lady Bracknell who will be ``very feminine-looking,'' a ``gorgon'' in behavior only, and possessed of a heart underneath that flinty exterior.

``The first experience, if you saw her from the other side of the street, should not be of a terrifying woman,'' says Redgrave. ``I think she knows exactly how to charm people, but she has this uncontrollable anger.''

At what?

``At anything that gets in her way,'' the actress replies with a laugh.

Freshly arrived from New York, where ``Earnest'' had its early rehearsals, Redgrave sips a cappuccino at a Pasadena-area cafe and proclaims herself ready for a live audience. Playing an L.A. stage is not a homecoming, exactly, but certainly familiar territory.

Redgrave lived for several years in L.A., but relocated to Connecticut following her divorce from actor John Clark in 2000.

``I really am more of an East Coast person,'' she says. ``It suits my temperament. I like the seasons. It's also great for me, with family and grandchildren in England, to be a little closer. Last January, I suddenly decided to go to England for the weekend for my sister's birthday. We don't really do that from L.A.''

That would be elder sister Vanessa Redgrave, with whom Lynn currently appears in the James Ivory film ``The White Countess.'' Ever the family affair, ``The White Countess'' also stars Vanessa's daughter (and Lynn's niece) Natasha Richardson.

``It was fabulous, the comradery,'' Redgrave says of the experience. ``Certainly some of the conditions in Shanghai were difficult to work in, but you can all go home to the hotel and have a glass of wine and laugh or be on the set and dive into each other's dressing rooms and have a gossip. We laugh so much together. It's really good.''

The film work is sporadic (Redgrave's last role prior to ``Countess'' was a memorable single scene at the end of ``Kinsey''), but Redgrave is rarely far from a stage. She recently appeared in a revival of Somerset Maugham's ``The Constant Wife'' on Broadway and, while in L.A. on an ``Earnest'' off night (Feb. 27), will give a single performance of her latest play, ``Nightingale.''

The play is the third written by Redgrave, following ``Shakespeare for My Father'' and ``The Mandrake Root.'' Redgrave wrote ``Nightingale'' as a solo performance for Caroline John, her friend since drama school. John was going through a career dry spell that actresses past 50 periodically experience. So Redgrave offered to create a project for her. While

Redgrave is Bracknell-ing it in L.A., John performs ``Nightingale'' at London's New End Theatre.

Redgrave's narrative inspiration for the play was, once again, her family. Shortly after her divorce in 2000, Redgrave was staying with her sister and her mother, actress Rachel Kempson, in England when she decided to seek out the grave of her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Kempson.

Redgrave found the church, but discovered that acid rain had washed away the name and dates of her grandmother's life from the headstone.

``I found this terribly poignant and upsetting, and it set me thinking,'' says Redgrave. ``What happens when we die if there's no mark left? What happens to the thousands of millions of people who live their life and laugh and suffer and cry, give birth and die and then they're gone? When my brother and sister and I are gone, who will remember? Who will care?''

Redgrave came late to play writing. She was 50 when she crafted the solo tribute ``Shakespeare for My Father,'' which ended up earning her a Tony Award nomination. No longer an apologetic or reluctant writer, Redgrave says she and Caroline John are on a similar wavelength when it comes to seizing the moment.

John, Redgrave explains, was the friend who took care of her for two weeks following her surgery for breast cancer three years ago. Later that year, Redgrave was there to return the favor when John developed a different kind of cancer.

``We're both very aware of the fleetingness of life,'' says Redgrave. ``If we've got the opportunity to do it now, we make it happen. It gives you a very clear look at things when you might not be there. Life's such an adventure when you think you might have been robbed of it.''

It's a sentiment with which even a Lady Bracknell could hardly disagree.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through March 5.

Tickets: $35 to $55. Call [phone].

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Photo:

Lynn Redgrave, on life and family

John Lazar/Staff Photographer