WILL, HER WAY MILI AVITAL FINDS HERSELF AT THE RIGHT STAGE TO BE `LEAR'S' CORDELIA.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

Mili Avital's last attempt at making her American stage debut ended badly. In fact, it ended before it began.

The Israel-born actress, whose film work includes the sci-fi favorite ``Stargate,'' ``Kissing a Fool'' and Jim Jarmusch's ``Dead Man,'' was scheduled to act in a play at the Mark Taper Forum, but she dropped out while the play was still in rehearsals.

``It was an absolutely painful experience for me. It was the opposite of my dream,'' says Avital, 34. ``My dream was of a profound experience, and the experience itself was brutal and technical and dry and boring and lacked inspiration. I thought,` `I'm done. I'll never do stage again.'''

She declines to identify the production. ``I've already opened my big mouth,'' she says. ``I don't want to get people upset.''

There is a happy ending here, and a bit of irony. Avital's live stage career did not come to a screeching halt. She ended up with the ensemble of Patsy Rodenburg and Lisa Robertson's new Tier 4 Productions, which opens its version of William Shakespeare's ``King Lear'' this weekend at the Electric Lodge in Venice.

The cast of well-seasoned stage veterans includes Diane Venora, Omar Metwally, Lawrence Pressman and Jayne Brook. Robert Mandan (formerly Chester of TV's ``Soap'') takes on Lear.

Avital plays Cordelia, Lear's youngest and favored daughter, who brings down all measures of patriarchal fury by refusing to flatter her father to win the lion's share of his kingdom.

In other words, Cordelia speaks the truth at all costs, an attribute to which the plain-

spoken Avital can relate. It's a quality from which this ``Lear'' is likely to benefit, according to its director.

``Cordelia is often played as a vulnerable victim,'' says Rodenburg, the head of voice at England's Royal National Theatre. ``In fact, she's honest, and she's vulnerable -- but she keeps telling the truth. That's a tough go, but Mili is doing that balance for me. She's heartbreaking, but she's also feisty, and that's what I wanted.''

< The Tier 4 experience is precisely what Avital craved to make both her American stage debut and take her first crack at Shakesepeare. Intimidating as she finds the language can be, Shakespeare's verses represent a kind of summit for actors, says Avital.

So says the lady who contends people should be able to read the Bible in Hebrew.

``I was offered (the chance) to play Ophelia in Israel. I was 18 or 19, and I realized I had no idea how to do it,'' says Avital. ``I thought I'd go to Israel and study, and then I thought, no, I want to study it in its original language. I was on stage holding one copy in Hebrew of `Romeo and Juliet' and one in English, and I didn't understand a word I was saying.''

And then eventually, she got it.

``I realized there was something so attractive about the pace even before I understood the meaning,'' she continues. ``There's something about the pace and structure that just takes you on.''

Tier 4 and this ``Lear'' grew out of Rodenburg and Robertson's Shakespeare and voice workshops. Mandan's work with the role of Lear in class gave rise to a full production, albeit one that will contain few frills or extravagant trapping.

That's by design as well. ``I think if you start staying it's all grand and they're all in tights and things, you just miss the relevance,'' says Rodenburg.

For her part, Avital came to the company as a walking blank slate. No research. No extensive studying of past productions or of what other actresses have done with Cordelia. She elected instead to soak up as much as possible from the likes of Mandan and Venora (who plays Lear's Fool) and, above all, to entrust herself to her director's vision.

``I'm in the hands of Patsy Rodenburg, and it will be fine,'' says Avital. ``I decided to come to rehearsals like a dog. Do this, do that, and it will just take you.'' Already an established actress in Israel when she came to America, Avital's work has been almost exclusively in film and TV. She played Scheherezade in the miniseries ``Arabian Nights'' and appeared in the TV films ``Uprising'' and ``After the Storm.''

She still encounters fans who recall her work in ``Stargate'' and demand to know why she didn't do the TV series, ``Stargate SG-1.''

``I get the weird fans,'' Avital says, ``Either the science-fiction fans or the Jim Jarmusch fanatics who have `Dead Man' posters on their walls.

In that latter film, an existential Western, Avital played the love interest to an actor who has pursued an enviable course: one Johnny Depp.

``That's the kind of career one wants to have,'' Avital says of Depp. ``Creativity in the arts no matter what medium, no matter what type of movie you're in, no matter how much money it makes, you just do what you love. He certainly has, and it's always been that way.''

When it's suggested that Avital has tried to walk a similar creative path, the actress agrees.

``Maybe it's because I started working young. I thought, `I'm supposed to fulfill someone's expectations,''' says Avital. ``Then you just relax and say, 'You know what? I'm just going to do what I love. I just don't care.' It angers a lot of people when you say that, but I don't.

``I just want to do what I love, and I couldn't imagine dying and not doing a production of Shakespeare in its original language.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

KING LEAR 

Where: Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 3.

Tickets: $27. [phone] or www.brownpapertickets.com.

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Photo:

(color) Mili Avital finds herself at the right stage to be `Lear's' Cordelia

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer