Backstage at the Cort Theatre, Jim Belushi is trying to explain how he and Robert Sean Leonard have just had a major breakthrough as they rehearse the play “Born Yesterday.”
“We just made some intricate … not intricate. What’s the word? Intrinsic?” Belushi asks, flailing for the right word.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Leonard.
“Internal? No … you know? The bottom structure?” Belushi says, frustrated.
“Infrastructural?” offers Leonard.
“Infrastructural! Yes. We just made a few infrastructural changes in attitude in a couple of scenes that are just marvelous,” says Belushi.
Leonard looks at his co-star with a smile.
“That’ll send them in droves to the seats: ‘We just made few infrastructural changes that will thrill you,’” he repeats.
“OK,” Belushi says, not missing a beat. “How about, ‘We just made something really funny’?”
That’s more like it.
Belushi and Leonard — two actors more famous these days for their roles on TV than stage — seem to have already gotten their chemistry down as they work on a revival of “Born Yesterday,” Garson Kanin’s 1946 award-winning comedy about sex and politics.
The play centers on a showgirl mistress played by Nina Arianda who becomes the object of a tug-of-war between her sugar daddy — a corrupt businessman named Harry Brock, played by Belushi — and a journalist played by Leonard, who is hired by Brock to smooth out herrough edges.
Belushi, 56, says that despite all the on-stage cigar smoking and hats and bourbon, the play still speaks to an audience in 2011.
“It’s relevant in that it’s going on today in our government, with lobbyists who are trying to get senators by giving campaign funds to put little amendments on their bills,” he says. “They were doing that in 1946 the same way they’re doing it now. Now, they call them lobbyists.”
Belushi, whose show “The Defenders” is on hiatus, and Leonard, who plays Dr. James Wilson on the Fox show “House,” have never worked together but have found kindred spirits on Broadway.
“I think Jim is a riot,” says Leonard, 42. “It’s hard to find a guy who can be physically intimidating and menacing who is also a good actor.”
For his part, Belushi carefully avoided watching Leonard on “House” for a selfish reason — the younger man’s show was broadcast on the same night as his old sitcom “According to Jim” and on a different network, making him the enemy.
“Petty, petty, petty,” says Belushi. Then he jokes: “They were doing really good with ratings so I just assumed it was bad.”
Both men have a long history with “Born Yesterday,” particularly Belushi, who first performed it as a 19-year-old. He was recruited to play the same role he’s doing now — Harry Brock — for a production at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill.
“It was the first play I did, it made me a star at the school and I got all my work from it,” he says, laughing. “I am Harry Brock. That is the Falstaff of contemporary plays. I’m this guy.”
Known more for his TV and film comedies, Belushi also has plenty of stage credits, including on Broadway in “Conversations With My Father” and as the Pirate King in “The Pirates of Penzance.” He has been in David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” Sam Shepard’s “True West” and John Guare’s “Moon Over Miami.”
“I’m rooted in the theater. Between sophomore year in high school and senior year in college, I did 40 plays,” he says. “Then I went into Second City. I’m at home on the boards.”
Leonard, who started performing at the Public Theater when he was 14, is making his 12th appearance on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 2001 for “The Invention of Love.” His other Broadway shows include “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” with Vanessa Redgrave and “The Iceman Cometh” with Kevin Spacey.
He has wanted to be in “Born Yesterday” for about a decade, ever since he did a table reading and realized the script was better than the 1950 movie version starring Judy Holliday. “The play is so wickedly funny and so moving,” he says. “This play is vital and it’s beautiful and it’s funny in ways you don’t expect.”
Belushi is even stronger with his praise for the playwright: “I’ve done David Mamet, who I think is close to Dylan Thomas as can be with music in his writing. Garson Kanin is the conductor. The choice of words, the pauses are as musical as Mamet,” he says. “That’s why I get so frustrated when I’m one word off because I know I dishonored the composer.”
Both men have had to adjust to doing theater again after years of TV.
“It’s hard for me to not try to do a scene and get to the result within an hour,” says Belushi, laughing.
Leonard agrees: “It’s so fun to do something over and over again for months,” he says. “It never gets boring.”
That doesn’t mean there isn’t pressure.
“Every night you hear those voices of people sitting down and you know there’s 1,100 people out there — 980 of them have never seen this play,” says Leonard. “It’s my job to give it to them tonight. And Garson Kanin is laying in his grave going, ‘Please do the best you can.’”
“Amen,” says Belushi.
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