Alda, Bergen a ‘good match’ for ‘Letters’, Alan Alda jumped aboard after getting past his doubts about the title.
Candice Bergen joined him when she found out she would be able to hold the script.
Both actors were set to take over last night through Dec. 5 as the star-crossed lovers in the Broadway production of A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters in the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.
They replace Carol Burnett and Brian Dennehy. (Actors are taking turns in the roles through Feb. 15.)
Though friends for many years, the M*A*S*H and Murphy Brown stars hadn’t worked together — but qualify as seasoned stage veterans.
Alda has appeared in Glengarry Glen Ross and Art on Broadway; and Bergen, The Best Man and Hurlyburly.
“I think we’re a very good match because we’re sort of these old TV warhorses,” Bergen said.
The play is made up of letters, Christmas cards, birth announcements and notes between a woman and a man through the years, starting in 1937. Their friendship and romance deepens, from birthday parties to high-school dances and rare meetings.
The way it is presented seems deceptively easy: The actors come out, sit down at a desk and begin reading aloud from binders for the next 90 minutes. They never stand, and they glance at each other only at the end.
“It gives the actors such a challenge — way more than you’d expect when you hear what the requirements are,” said Alda, 78.
Bergen, 68, agreed: “It’s fascinating for an actor because you’re so restricted.”`
She was happy to learn that the script is onstage with her the whole time.
“I just have very little memory left, so lines have to be hammered onto my brain,” she said with a laugh. “That was just enormously reassuring, frankly.”
