THE truth about Derek Jacobi, one of the most emotionally potent
British classical actors of his generation, is that he has never known
how to take a bow. He loathes being singled out for approval. To him it
is a degrading spectacle, a charade. In fact, his aversion
proved so vexing to his mentor, Laurence Olivier, that one day, after a
performance of the Peter Shaffer play ''Black Comedy,'' Olivier took his
protege aside and offered a fatherly reprimand. ''He said,'' Mr. Jacobi
recalled, '' 'If you have pretensions of being a leading actor you must
learn how to take a curtain call.' ''
This may seem an odd sort of inhibition for an actor. Yet for Mr. Jacobi
it persists to this day. Audiences at ''Uncle Vanya,'' the new
Roundabout Theater Company production in which Mr. Jacobi makes his
first Broadway appearance in more than a decade, will easily spot him
during the curtain call: he's the one looking as if he'd rather be doing
his taxes.
''I just don't like being special,'' he said the other day in his
dressing room at the top of the Brooks Atkinson Theater, where the
revival opens on April 30. ''I know they've got to say thank you, and
it's rude not to acknowledge it. I just wish they wouldn't.''
This may not be false modesty but true modesty. In the program for
''Uncle Vanya,'' for example, Mr. Jacobi's biographical entry is half
the length of those of some of his fellow actors. And it fails to
mention his 1985 Tony Award for his portrayal of Benedick in ''Much Ado
About Nothing,'' brought to New York by the Royal Shakespeare Company in
repertory with ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' (Mr. Jacobi also played
Cyrano). It also offers no hint of the ''Sir'' he is entitled to by
virtue of his knighthood by the Queen, conferred on a day when Her
Majesty, still recuperating from a broken arm, came to the investiture
with a handbag draped over her cast.
On a stage, though, there is nothing unassuming about Mr. Jacobi.
''He's a truly self-made star actor,'' Frank Rich wrote in The New York
Times, reviewing a 1988 London production of ''Richard II.'' ''Having no
strong personality of his own -- or selflessly choosing not to project
one -- he packs his performances with the kind of precise character
details (remember the gentle stutter in 'Breaking the Code'?) that
demand the most intense concentration.''
His Vanya follows very much in that tradition. In the famous scene in
which the buffoonish professor, Serebryakov, played by Brian Murray,
reveals that he is planning to sell the estate upon which Vanya and his
niece Sonya have depended and toiled for years, Mr. Jacobi's tantrum
plays out as a series of emotional explosions, set off on the stage like
depth charges, that build to his firing a gun at Mr. Murray.
Mr. Jacobi has no patience for a deconstruction of his
performance. ''Chekhov is so text driven that it's wonderful to play,''
he said. ''But I don't like to talk about how I'm doing it. The truth
is, it should be seen and not talked about.''
He is less reluctant to parse his 40 years onstage. On a recent
Saturday night, he spent several hours at a corner table at a restaurant
on West 55th Street telling funny stories about his life in the golden
age of British theater in the 1960's and 70's; about working with the
likes of Olivier and Michael Redgrave, Maggie Smith and Albert Finney;
about the unexpected success of ''I, Claudius,'' the BBC series that
became a cult hit when it was broadcast in the United States on PBS in
1977. (He bought the London house in which he now lives from the widow
of Jack Pulman, who had adapted the Robert Graves novels for
television.) And he spoke about the endless succession of roles he has
played over the years in togas and doublets.
''I've been a tights man for so long,'' he said with a sigh.
For all those celebrated appearances in tights, though, Mr. Jacobi
has never achieved the widespread celebrity in this country that can be
claimed by several of his contemporaries, among them Judi Dench, Ian
McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Unlike them, he has not had the kind of
movie or commercial television role that would appreciably raise his
profile -- and his price tag.
Appearing in a play, he said, in his soothing, precise baritone, ''is
more difficult and ultimately, it's more exciting.'' ''It's
all got to be working vocally, physically. And then there is the
exhilaration you feel at the end.'' Adrenaline is one thing; fiscal
health another. ''I'm tempted to say it's worth $20 million. But it's
not!''
Given his great ambivalence about stardom, it is hard to know how
seriously to take Mr. Jacobi when he talks about wanting something
as indelicate as a big payday. Chekhov's hapless Vanya is his first
stage appearance since he played the part at the Chichester Festival in
England in 1996. (In the Roundabout production, directed by Michael
Mayer, Mr. Jacobi is also appearing with Roger Rees and Laura
Linney.)
For the last four years -- his longest hiatus from the theater in
decades -- he has concentrated on his ''Cadfael'' television detective
series, set in the Middle Ages, and on movies. The critics lavished
praise on his wildly theatrical performance as the painter Francis Bacon
in the 1998 ''Love Is the Devil,'' and he has featured roles in Philip
Haas's forthcoming ''Up at the Villa'' and Ridley Scott's highly
anticipated ''Gladiator.''
He even made the Hollywood rounds: ''I'm told by my friends, 'Go out
to L.A., sit by a pool and talk to everybody.' '' So he threw off the
tights, pulled out a bathing suit and took a bunch of meetings with
casting people, ''who all seemed to be 22 years old.'' They told him,
''Sir Derek, we are so proud to have you here.'' Proud, maybe, but not
brimming with offers.
Fit at 61, with leonine features, sea-blue eyes and a blondish
goatee, Mr. Jacobi certainly looks ready for his closeup. But he
remains the quintessential man of the playhouse, one of a vanishing
breed of actor in the English-speaking theater, so steeped in
Shakespeare and Chekhov that no classic seems beyond his reach. This is
an actor, after all, who knows off the top of his head how many times he
has played Hamlet (397, not counting high school).
It is Olivier whom Mr. Jacobi believes deserves much of the
credit for the artistic stature of the London institutional theater in
the 1960's and later. As the founding director of the National Theater
-- now the Royal National Theater -- Olivier used his own star power to
forge a repertory theater.
''Such was his reputation that people like Maggie Smith and Albert
Finney and Robert Stephens were willing to say, 'O.K., I am willing to
join you,' '' Mr. Jacobi said. ''And with just three years at the
Birmingham Rep, I found myself in the company of these glorious
performers.'' In 1963, he opened in ''Hamlet'' on his birthday, playing
Laertes to Peter O'Toole's Prince of Denmark. At the opening night
party, Shirley Bassey sang ''Happy Birthday'' to Mr. Jacobi from
the stage. ''It was,'' he said, ''a magic, magic time.''
Mr. Jacobi, of course, would become a mainstay of Olivier's company.
Years later, when he himself was playing Hamlet, at the Old Vic in 1979,
Richard Burton dropped by for dinner. They had met on the set of one of
Burton's films in which Mr. Jacobi had a tiny part, and he had
promised to see Mr. Jacobi's play. Backstage, Mr. Jacobi said,
Burton made a special request. ''He said, 'Do you mind if we
go onto the stage? I haven't been on a stage in 20 years.' '' Together,
they stood under the lights. ''And when we went to dinner, he wanted to
talk Shakespeare all night.''
It strikes a listener as a poignant juxtaposition, the movie star
long gone from the stage expounding on Shakespeare to a man who would
never leave it. For Mr. Jacobi is a tights man through and through.
Some look to their dotage and see golf. Mr. Jacobi looks ahead and
envisions Lear.