'The bottom line for my character is that "being in a good mood is not the same as being a moron".'

David Morrissey's American comeback

In an admittedly mediocre year for new plays, Richard Greenberg's 'Three Days of Rain' proved rare in its ability to keep audiences hooked until the final word of the final scene. It played briefly as part of the American Import season at the Donmar Warehouse last March. Three stunning actors -Colin Firth, Elizabeth McGovern and David Morrissey - explored with delicacy and precision the impossibility of really understanding the past and the emotional legacy we all inherit from our parents. Far removed from the usual trailer-trash dramas that cross the Atlantic, Greenberg's play is set among a group of well-educated, sophisticated WASPs. The title is the typically terse entry in the diary of a famous architect, Ned Janeway, who has just died when the play opens. The words infuriate his neurotic son, Walker, who, having gone AWOL, returns for the readingofthe will together with his sister Nan, and Pip, the son of his father's partner. In the second act, the same actors play their parents and the audience discovers what the three offspring will never know, the emotionally charged events that lie behind the weather report in the diary. 

The Donmar has happily persuaded the same actors to return for another run. For 35-year-old Morrissey ( pictured above right with Firth), who doubles as the good-natured Pip and his ambitious, mouthy father Theo, it was the first stage play he had done for many years. He was attracted to the script immediately: 'I really couldn't find any reason why I shouldn't do it -apart from cowardice. It starts with a two-page speech, it's in American and we only had two weeks to rehearse. Two weeks for a dense piece of work. I always knew the play was good but whether we could do it justice in such a short rehearsal period I was less sure about.' 

After a stage career in which he worked with the best of directors - Deborah Warner, Declan Donnellan and Matthew Warchus - Morrissey moved into films and television and made his name in a series of deranged parts mostly written by Tony Marchant and Lucy Gannon. Last year, however, he changed perceptions by playing Kiffer in the controversial film 'Hilary and Jackie'. Kiffer is the conductor, Hilary's husband, who refuses to be intimidated by Jacqueline du Pre's reputation and who ends up in bed with her during her mental breakdown. In casting Morrissey as Pip, director Robin Lefevre was possibly influenced by the film, for Kiffer and Pip have something in common with each other, and perhaps with Morrissey himself. Good people are traditionally hard to play, far more interesting to be the villain, but in both the film and the play, Morrissey radiates an infectious enjoyment. Pip is a well- adjusted actor in a soap opera who enjoys his work, his fame, and indeed the whole of his life, and finally becomes exasperated with Walker's neurosis. 

Looking as if he is about to go on to the golf course in a stripey jumper and slacks, a relaxed Morrissey is enjoying the time to look at the play again and is perceptive about his role. 'The bottom linefor Pip,' he says, 'is that "being in a good mood is not the same as being a moron".' Morrissey points out how important it is that Pip's extremely ambitious father died when he was three. Unlike Walker, who is , haunted by his father, Pip only had a mother who was content to love him and let him go. 'If Theo had stayed alive, Pip would not have been like that, because Theo is so driven.' Married to the novelist Esther Freud and living in North London, Morrissey was brought up in Liverpool and had a happy childhood as the youngest of four children. As with so many actors who don.t come from theatrical families and don't do well academically, he became interested in drama through his local youth theatre. It was then run firstly by Pedr James and later Ken Campbell. Both artistic directors went out of their way to make the young actors feel included, and the kindness of people such as Anton Lesser convinced Morrissey that he too could become a professional actor. Given that in one year he has appeared at the Donmar, directed his own short film and completed two feature films, 'Fanny and Elvis' and 'Some Voices', it is not surprising that he is content to the last: 'I've often thought that if, when I left RADA, somebody had said this is what you will be doing five or ten years down the line, I would have thought: "That'll do.I'm quite happy with that. "  - Jane Edwardes 

'Three Days of Rain' returns to the Donmar Warehouse from Tuesday. See Off-West End listings 

© Copyright of Time Out 1999