NY Magazine: Coming Home

Feb 20.09

Jane Fonda returns to the stage, radical and chic.

By Mary Kaye Schilling
All Photographs by Brigitte Lacombe

janefonda_slideshowbttn_560

It is a voice we’ve missed, a voice like no other—an amalgam of disparities and contradictions: tautly seductive, caustic and soothing, detached yet engaged. As complex and mutable, you might say, as the woman herself. So it’s no surprise that for her first Broadway performance in 46 years, Jane Fonda chose a story about transformation. In Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations, she plays a musicologist with ALS, hoping to solve one last mystery: why Ludwig van Beethoven spent his final years, stone-deaf, writing 33 small masterpieces based upon one inferior waltz by another man. “I’m attracted to people with passionate obsessions which override things like age or illness,” says Fonda. “I found the play really visionary—the interplay between past and present, between life and death.”

Kaufman gave Fonda the part after a dinner that lasted a little over an hour. “That never happens. Never!” he says. “She was telling me things that I thought of when I was writing the script.” Fonda—who is working on a book about aging for Random House—recounts a curious coincidence. “I was writing a chapter that talked about Beethoven when I got the script,” says the 71-year-old actress, who is a classical-music fan but no expert. “I was writing about how even with infirmities, some of the great people in history—Matisse, Schweitzer, Beethoven—achieved the pinnacle of their work under very challenging circumstances related to age. So this play is the perfect thing for me to be doing right now.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON NEW YORK MAGAZINE’S WEB SITE

1

Category: Film, Television & Theater, Press

| More

Responses to “ NY Magazine: Coming Home ”

  1. Susie says:
    July 23, 2009 at 11:52 pm

    Loved reading this! I always go directly to your blog and haven’t checked this before now. I know now why you were so drawn to the play! I think it was meant for you!!


Leave a Reply


You must be logged in to post a comment. If you do not have an account please register by clicking here.

Film, Television & Theater

  • "At age 50, I broke all the career rules and left acting for 15 years. Ten of those years I was married to Ted Turner and after that I spent 5 years writing my memoirs and traveling the world on behalf of women and girls. Needless to say, returning to my profession late in life has been an interesting, exciting and unusual experience! "Monster-in-Law" was my first film after this hiatus and was one of my most fun professional experiences after "9 to 5"! During my 15 year absence, I gained confidence and, as a result, I feel that my acting is better, more nuanced and relaxed than ever."