Father and Son

Dan Lauria stars in the George Street Playhouse production of ‘The Winning Streak.’

By: Matt Smith

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Winning Streak will star Dan Lauria from TV’s The Wonder Years


   Baseball always seems one player strike or steroid scandal away
from destroying itself, but as James Earl Jones’ character put it in the film
Field of Dreams: "The one constant through all the years… has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard,
rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time."
   In The Winning Streak, a two-character drama about a
retired Major League umpire and his long-lost son, playwright Lee Blessing is
even more eloquent in explaining the perpetual allure of the game.
   "The minute I retired," says Omar, the crotchety old umpire,
addressing his son, Ryland. "Once I got back in those stands? It all changed like
magic. You couldn’t see their faces anymore. That’s what it was. They weren’t
a bunch of s—-heads anymore. They were uniforms. Caps. Gloves. Bats. Helmets.
All perfectly arranged around a diamond. That’s what seduces us in the first place.
That diamond, opening out forever. Only infinite shape in sports. Only infinite
game."
   The Winning Streak plays at George Street Playhouse in
New Brunswick Jan. 4-30, with veteran stage and TV actor Dan Lauria as Omar, Brennan
Brown as Ryland and Lucie Tiberghien directing. Mr. Lauria says speeches like
that are what make Mr. Blessing "a wonderful writer."
   "I ran a theater group out in L.A. (L.A. Theatreworks)," says
the 57-year-old actor, best known for his role on TV’s The Wonder Years.
"Every Monday night we read a new play with the biggest people in the business,
and every year for 10 years we read something Lee was working on… A typical
Lee Blessing play is not strong on plot, but has wonderful characters and wonderful
slices of life, and he’s able to have that wonderful mix of everyday, realistic
dialogue that at times will get very poetic but seems natural in the mouths of
these characters. That’s hard to do. That’s a real art."
   In fact, Omar is usually distant and defensive when attempting
to talk — or not talk — about anything besides baseball. Ryland, the
product of one-night stand when Omar was a minor-league umpire, has come to town
seeking family information and won’t take "no" for an answer. Fortunately for
both men, Omar won’t let Ryland leave — the hometown team is on a winning
streak and the former considers the latter’s appearance to have brought them good
luck.
   "It’s a rather pathetic character," says Mr. Lauria of Omar.
"He’s avoided the realities of life so long, and now that he’s confronted with
them, he doesn’t know how to handle it. Out pops a son he really didn’t know he
had, and he’s trying to deal with it near the end of his life. It’s a little too
late. I guess the right quote would be, ‘It’s a little too late in the game for
him.’"
   Mr. Lauria’s character on the long-running The Wonder Years
was also a father living in a completely different world from his offspring,
but "this couldn’t be more of a 180 from Jack Arnold on ‘The Wonder Years’ if
you tried," he says. "I hope people come expecting the father on ‘The Wonder Years,’
because they’re going to be shocked. The father on ‘The Wonder Years’ accepted
all the responsibility. This guy accepts none."
   The Winning Streak is Mr. Lauria’s second production
at George Street, having previously starred in the 1997 smash Inspecting Carol,
and the show follows George Street’s strong staging of Mr. Blessing’s A Walk
in the Woods last season. It also marks the fifth new play in a row for Mr.
Lauria, who also continues to find steady work on television.
   "I’ve done over 70 guest spots (on TV)," he says. "It’s nice
money and you need the exposure or else you’re not worth anything on stage, but
how many times can you say, ‘You’re gonna get me in trouble with the commission.’
Thank God for cops. I’ll always work… But the theater’s not like that."
   Mr. Lauria was attending Southern Connecticut State University
on a football scholarship when acting found him. "I was telling a joke on the
football field," he recalls, " and a famous acting teacher, Constance Welch —
she’s the one who started the Yale Dramat — she overheard me telling a joke
and said, ‘I need a big ugly guy to play Caliban in ‘The Tempest.’ Would you like
to do it?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and that was it."
   After a tour in the Marines during the Vietnam War, Mr. Lauria
returned home to focus on the theater, earning a master of fine arts degree at
the University of Connecticut and eventually moving to New York City to try his
luck. Nearly three decades later, he continues to write, and has two screenplays
that are "constantly being optioned." One is a romantic story written for Joe
Mantegna, Gena Rowlands, Charles Durning and Peter Falk; the other, Mr. Lauria
explains, is a gangster movie also scribed for Mr. Mantegna about a "55-year-old
limo driver ex-convict who has to take a 27-year-old porn star girl from New York
to L.A., and it’s about how they become like father and daughter. It’s actually
a very sweet movie, too."
   A "workaholic when it comes to acting," Mr. Lauria looks to
a pair of veteran actors as inspirations for his career. "I had two great mentors,"
he says. "Charlie Durning’s like my dad, and Jack Klugman. They’re both in their
80s and still doing eight shows a week. Like Jack says, if he has a heart attack,
‘Call a fanatical doctor, will ya?’"
   Mr. Lauria has impressive connections in the acting world, but
the "diehard Yankee fan" can drop some impressive baseball names thanks to his
friendship with Lee Mazzilli, a former player and current manager of the Baltimore
Orioles.
   "I became very close with Lee Mazzilli when he was acting for
a while. He actually did ‘Tony and Tina’s Wedding’ for about eight months in New
York, and I helped him get the role and I coached him," says Mr. Lauria. "Two
years in a row at the Frank Sinatra (celebrity golf) tournament, two nights each,
I had dinner with Joe Mantegna, Dennis Farina, Yogi Berra, Joe Torre and Lee Mazzilli.
I’ve got to tell you — we didn’t talk acting once. It was all baseball."
The Winning Streak plays at George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Ave., New
Brunswick, Jan. 4-30 (previews Jan. 4-6). Performances: Tues.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat.
2, 8 p.m., Sun. 2, 7 p.m.; Jan. 13, 2 p.m.; no 2 p.m. performance Jan. 15. Tickets
cost $28-$56. For information, call (732) 246-7717. On the Web: www.gsponline.org