If It's Sunday, Then I Must Be . . .

Repertory Actors On the Challenges & Joys of Double Duty

New York-based actor Louis Cancelmi is undergoing a fascinating transformation these days. Go to Arena Stage today and watch: He'll be the ferociously dignified Italian immigrant Marco in "A View From the Bridge" this afternoon, then the nebbishy neighbor kid Bernard in "Death of a Salesman" tonight.

Or contrast Virginia Kull's brief saucy turn as Miss Forsythe in the second act of "Salesman" with her complex portrayal of Catherine, the niece dogged by an overprotective uncle in "View."

These conversions are part of the lure of repertory acting, an all-but-lost art (beyond the realm of summer fests, at least) that's seen a surge this season on Washington stages. Another angle on rep is being taken at the Shakespeare Theatre's Harman Center, where Andrew Long is playing Mark Antony in the related Roman tragedies "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra." Several other actors are playing key roles in both epics.

The Post sat down with two groups of actors to talk about juggling roles and coping with different directors.

Cancelmi, fellow New Yorker Kull and D.C. performer Naomi Jacobson -- unabashedly frisky as Willy Loman's unnamed paramour in "Salesman," and alternately formidable and retiring as Eddie's wife in "View" -- spoke at Arena's temporary offices in Crystal City.

Shakespeare Theatre regulars Aubrey K. Deeker, Ted van Griethuysen and Craig Wallace, each playing multiple supporting roles in the "Roman Rep," spoke at the Harman Center.

The comments of both groups have been thematically grouped together.

Van Griethuysen: I'll just say right off the bat I think it's the way actors are meant to work. There's nothing like it. It's the only art form where you're expected to do the same thing over and over, day after day, eight times a week, maybe for six months or a year of your life. Here, you're off a couple nights a week, you go from doing a small role to doing something large the next night.

Deeker: It's wonderful.

Van Griethuysen: It's like life. It stays alive.

Jacobson: I sort of feel like D.C. is a rep company unto itself. I get cast in different ways at different theaters. But I would love to do a four- or five-show rep and get to switch it up.

Kull: You work different muscles.