European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 22, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                As co stars in the bittersweet Broadway comedy Sweet sue Mary Tyler Moore left end Lynn Redgrave both portray the same character. Sweet roles for Moore and Redgrave a photo by Stephen Holden new York times he two actresses scaled on a Couch in a backstage dressing room make an Eye jolting contrast. Mary Tyler Moore wearing a Bright red dross exudes the nervous crackling Energy of a thoroughbred stamping at the starting Gale Lynn Redgrave Clart in Black projects an amiable Reserve gazing impassively through Cornflower Blue eyes and speaking in soil musically rounded cadences As Redgrave reclines Moore leans Forward and chatters with the pm phallic enthusiasm of her most famous television character Mary Richards the two Are co Slars in Sweet sue. A r. Pele Gurney or s bittersweet comedy about a suburban woman in her Lale 40s who Falls in Tovo with her son s Dartmouth College Roommate which has just opened on Broadway alter a month of tryouts in Boc Lon. In the play Moore and Redgrave Bolh portray the same character Susan we Ceiell. A successful designer of greeting cards who loses her heart to handsome 22-year-old Jake. The character of Jake like thai of Susan is played by two actors John k Linton and Barry Tubb who interact with the two susans in an emotionally tumultuous round Lay whose outcome do they or Don t they consummate their love is left Lahlali quigly unclear. Moore As Susan and Redgrave As her alter ego Susan too create a composite larger loan Lile portrait of a mature woman in the throes of belated first love but battling in tooth and Nail. The notion of having two actors simultaneously playing the same character is not new. Eugene o Neill did it in Days without end and it was the Central device of Peler Nichols passion play. Pele Gurney described the concept by likening it to Picasso s renderings of two faced women Moore explained. Though she is the same woman each face is a different aspect. I actually think to All have 10 or 20 different voices in our Heads that arc alternating continuously " the differences come out of the fact that Mary and i Are two very dil Ernel people projecting different versions of what Susan is Redgrave added i think that the role could to taken by two other people and played legitimately but in a totally different Way rom Page 18 the stars and stripes How we re doing  of the two actresses Moore identifies with the character More directly she s a Little like i am and a Lille like the roles i be played before including Ordinary people in that she is a product of what she was trained 10 be and to do Moore reflected. In one speech Susan says thai she was brought up to believe that in you play by the rules and wait Long enough and have been a Good girl you gel your Reward that everything will tall into place and make sense. Of course life in t like that but through her relationship with the boy she discovers Hal it she lets go a Little and allows something to happen that does t have a beginning Middle or end it can free her As a woman and an  Redgrave s vision of the character is a bit More abstract. Though i Haven t played a woman like sue before i know who she is she said for me one o Tho Saddest sights is people who a a full of if onlys. Susan is one of those if on y people who until Sho meets Jake has been unable to let the floodgates open " Sweet sue is the first play by Gurney. The author of Tito dining room the Middle Ages the perfect part and other dramas that delineate the manners and foibles of prosperous White Anglo Saxon protestant americans to make it to Broadway Moore became involved with the play last summer Whan it was first presented at the Williamstown theater festival in Williams own mass. I was coming off a failed to series and a badly reviewed movie and i was  she recalled. I needed to gel Back up on a horse quickly and so i called my old Friend Nikos Pica Hartopoulos. At Williamstown since he had been saying Lor years thai we should work together he brought me the play to read and i loved in  Redgrave was attracted to Sweet sue for several reasons i had been looking fruitlessly for a Long Lime Lor a new play As opposed to a classic she explained i gel offered a lot of dead authors and a lot of English imports. Either the plays Aren t very exciting or i feel i m being asked to play a character i be played before which would be easy but Boring i be done american plays before but unlit now i have not been part of the playwright s process i did sister wary Ignatius explains it All for you. But Only after someone else had had the Tun of working with Chris  one of the fascinations of watching Moore who just sunday february 22,1987 turned 50, and Redgrave 43, perform together is in seeing two women of vastly different backgrounds and temperaments merge into the same person. While Moore s Susan is More theatrical and openly sensual than Redgrave s Susan too it is the Latler s reserves of sweetness strength and Subtle humor that help put together Moore s shattered world once Jake leaves her Lor a woman his own age. The interaction brings to mind tha struggles both personal and professional that Moore and Redgrave have weathered. In 1980. The year she won acclaim both or her movie portrayal of Beth the unyielding Mother in Ordinary people and the hospitalized quadriplegic in the Broadway play whose life is ii anyway Moore lost the Only child of her first marriage when he accidentally shot himself her second marriage to the television executive Grant tinker was also at an end. Redgrave grew up the youngest member and the shy. Frightened ugly duckling of a famous theatrical family. Although her International Success 20 years ago in the movie Georgy girl made her famous it also typecast her in the Public mind As a Pudgy Kook pushing a baby Carriage. Ii is a stereotype that the svelte elegant actress must combat even today after having appeared on the new York stage in such varied and demanding vehicles As stack comedy mrs. Warten s profession Aren l we All and Saint Joan. Saint Joan was directed by her husband and manager John Clark with whom she lives a comfortably rustic life filled with children and animals. In the Hills outside los Angeles. Moore also has the mixed Blessing of having to live up to an image that will never change so Long As there Are reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore show that of 1he Ideal single career woman. Three years ago Moore married her third husband the new York cardiologist Robert Levine. The couple recently bought a country House and two horses in upstate new York Hunt country on the stage Moore and Redgrave have found a synchronicity that allows each to Slop into the other s shoes. One night i was late with an Entrance because of a wardrobe change that did t allow me enough time and i missed it Moore recalled Whan i finally made it onstage Lynn was saying my line i pointed to Hor and said exactly and it worked. One night Belore the end of Tho run we plan to make the grand Experiment and Swap