MARTHA, MY DEAR Plimpton reflects on
Shakespeare in the dressing room.

Photo: Imogen Brown

Showbiz is in Martha Plimpton’s blood—quite literally. The 36-year-old actor whom fans fondly remember for her 1980s screen work in The Goonies and The Mosquito Coast was conceived by two New York thespians (Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton) while they were in the Broadway version of Hair in 1970. And since that countercultural rock musical originated downtown at the Public Theater, you could say that Plimpton’s destiny has been intertwined with the House of Papp from the beginning. Her stage debut, The Haggadah, took place there in 1980; she returned in 2002 for David Mamet’s cryptolesbian comedy Boston Marriage; and starting Tuesday, she will portray Helena for Shakespeare in the Park’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Considering that Plimpton just ended a nine-month commitment in Lincoln Center Theater’s The Coast of Utopia, she now officially owns the title of hardest-working woman in New York theater. She took the new job a mere six weeks after Utopia’s closing-night party which, according to rumors, was as epic as the trilogy itself. “I’m not at liberty to talk about it,” Plimpton demurs teasingly during a rehearsal break.

The actor actually joined Midsummer, directed by Daniel Sullivan, a week into rehearsals after Missi Pyle dropped out. Despite having just finished a monumental, once-in-a-career project, Plimpton accepted quickly. “I was about to go to Los Angeles for the summer to scrounge up some television or film, and then I got this call from Dan,” she says. “I decided I’d much rather stay home. This is way more fun than pounding the pavement in L.A.”

Not that Plimpton is doing Midsummer for the heck of it. Of all the young lovers stumbling through the woods near Athens being juiced and goosed by Puck, Helena is the scene-stealer as the wailing, supposedly homely one who finds herself suddenly the object of both Demetrius’s and Lysander’s desire. The role fits into the niche Plimpton has carved out for herself in the six years since she moved from Chicago, where she did acclaimed work at the Steppenwolf Theater, to New York. Here, in diverse works such as Hobson’s Choice, Sixteen Wounded and Shining City, Plimpton has transmuted her saucy teen persona into a figure of regal bearing, larger-than-life humor and a flair for dense language. Like Billy Crudup, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Elizabeth Marvel and Dennis O’Hare, she’s one of those rare stage creatures whose gutsy, flamboyant performances work best live.

One person who has watched Plimpton’s theatrical maturation is Sullivan, who directed her in Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 1994 production of The Sisters Rosensweig. “Martha’s always been a wonderful, instinctive actress who has accumulated more technique over the years,” he says. “After coming out of Lincoln Center, she got her energies back and was ready to go. I was a little surprised—and delighted—that she immediately wanted to get on board.”

Sullivan’s Midsummer will have a spare, elemental quality, with a set dominated by a huge tree designed by Eugene Lee (Wicked) and characters in Victorian dress. Since Utopia spanned 1833 to 1866, Plimpton’s new costuming won’t be radically different from that of her last gig, but the language will. And she has only one other Shakespeare on her résumé, a 1991 Pericles—at the Public, naturally. Has immersion in Stoppard’s rhetorical cascades made it easier to mouth the Bard? “It’s hard to say, ‘Well, of course it feels perfectly natural to go from Stoppard to Shakespeare,’ ” Plimpton muses. “That would be asinine. It’s all difficult, and you just sort of go at it bit by bit, hoping you tell the story clearly.”

She doesn’t stint with her homework. On Plimpton’s charming MySpace page (a rare and candid undertaking for a celebrity), she posted a marked-up First Folio page from Midsummer. But when the website is mentioned, she practically blushes over the phone. “It’s just a MySpace page, for God’s sake,” the actor says. “It’s something I do to have a good time and communicate with friends and colleagues and be silly.” Still, the page—which features photos of role models such as Gena Rowlands, Anna Magnani and Gilda Radner—has a practical use: Plimpton’s writing about her favorite bands got her work reviewing music on MTV’s website.

Music critic, blogger, stage and screen presence: Plimpton might be accused of being a workaholic. After Midsummer winds down in early September, though, she intends to have real downtime. “My immediate plan after we close is to go to Puerto Rico and take some fucking vacation,” Plimpton says with a laugh. “Because my butt is getting tired.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is playing at the Delacorte Theater. See “Shakespeare alfresco.”