Kathleen Turner celebrates 70 at Ogunquit Playhouse, calls being on stage 'the very best'

OGUNQUIT, Maine — Throughout her life and her career, Kathleen Turner has traveled the world and has given numerous memorable performances on both stage and screen.

This summer, though, just weeks after turning 70, Turner is experiencing two firsts in her life: she has finally made it to Maine, and she is starring in her very first musical.

Now through Aug. 17, Turner is performing alongside Broadway actress Julia Murney and others in the Ogunquit Playhouse’s latest production, “A Little Night Music,” a comedic and romantic farce with music and lyrics by the legendary Stephen Sondheim. Hunter Foster is directing.

In taking the Playhouse stage, Turner joins the ranks of other icons, such as Bette Davis, Betty White, Walter Matthau, and others, who have shined in roles at the theater throughout its near century of entertaining local summer audiences.

And, judging by her reaction to the Playhouse and its staff and crew, we should not be surprised if we see Turner return to Ogunquit for another production someday.

“The theater has a tremendous amount of support,” Turner said during a recent phone interview. “People are loyal and very involved. I’m very impressed.”

Turner, whose acting career began in the 1970s, first achieved popular notice and critical acclaim as femme fatale Mattie Walker in “Body Heat,” the 1981 noir film in which she starred opposite William Hurt. After that, there was no looking back: throughout the '80s, she starred in such hits as “Romancing the Stone,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and “War of the Roses,” and even provided the voice for the sultriest toon ever to appear on film, Jessica Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

But it’s the stage that Turner said she has always preferred, has always considered her true artistic and professional love. On stages in New York City, London, and elsewhere, Turner has portrayed such iconic characters as Mrs. Robinson in the theater adaptation of “The Graduate” and, in a dream come true for her, Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“Being right there, with people who are responding to your performance in the moment, is the very best,” she said. “I never go one or two years without being on stage.”

In “A Little Night Music,” Turner plays Madame Armfeldt, a former courtesan, now wealthy and aging, who teaches her granddaughter, Fredrika, about the three smiles of a summer night. The play takes place in Sweden at the start of the previous century, during a midsummer party, where everyone is swapping partners, having affairs, and rekindling lost love.

“I’ve never done a musical before,” Turner said. “I didn’t know if I ever would.”

But Turner, who has built her career on staying fresh and never repeating herself on screen or stage, knew this opportunity when she saw it.

“This is solid,” she said. “It’s quite brilliant. The music is so intricate ... It’s very funny and has wonderful comedic timing. I love making people laugh.”

And, for Turner, who for 30 years has lived with rheumatoid arthritis, the role of Madame Armfeldt had another appealing and accommodating aspect. The character is wheelchair-bound.

“She gets to ride around,” Turner said, a twinkle in that distinct and famous voice of hers.

Turner said The Ogunquit Playhouse has given the Sondheim musical “beautiful production values – the set, the lights, the costumes, all of it.”

“The Playhouse has really prioritized having extraordinary people in their positions,” she said.

Turner said she was attracted to the idea of performing at the Playhouse because it fits her belief that there is life and opportunity, for her and for theatergoers, beyond Broadway.

“Everybody deserves good theater,” she said. “Not just in New York.”

Murney, the singer and Broadway and TV veteran who plays Madame Armfeldt’s daughter, Desiree, agreed with Turner, saying The Ogunquit Playhouse is “so well-run.”

“The staff is friendly and good at their jobs,” Murney said during a recent phone interview. “The theater has the facility, the wherewithal, the talent to make big shows ... All departments are on all cylinders.”

Murney has appeared in such TV shows as “Sex and the City,” “30 Rock,” and “Succession,” and has performed in “Wicked” on Broadway. She described “A Little Night Music” as “not your typical summer stock show.”

“This one can be denser, more esoteric,” she said. “It’s about love – family love, sexual love, all of that. It’s an evening of continuing bouncing breath.”

And one for which audiences are showing up, despite the show’s unconventional summer fare.

“They’re on the ride with us,” Murney said.

Murney praised her costars, such as Mike McGowan, who plays Fredrik Egerman, a middle-aged lawyer married to a much younger woman. Murney also is likely to always remember and cherish the first moment she found herself in Turner's presence on the first day of rehearsal.

“That’s really Kathleen Turner,” she said to herself.

Murney said she and Turner’s character are “women who live life large and to the fullest.”

“The two of them are cut from the same cloth, but their patterns are different,” she said.

And, like Turner, Murney said she prefers the stage.

“For pure adrenaline, and for pure attachment to what you’re doing and what you’re trying to share, there’s nothing better than the stage,” she said. “The stage is the most alive, most present, most on fire. That’s a thrill that can’t be matched.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kathleen Turner joins Ogunquit Playhouse for ‘A Little Night Music'