Ryan a Heavy Again in ‘Dance of Death’ : Theater: Many of his roles have a brusque, he-man quality. ‘The heavies are memorable, and usually they’re good parts,’ he says.

“I’ve played a lot of great heavies,” said Mitchell Ryan. He’s playing another heavy in August Strindberg’s “The Dance of Death,”, at Los Angeles Theatre Center under the direction of Alan Mandell.

“He’s very savage--a hurt, sick, devious rat,” said the actor of his role as Edgar, an artillery captain locked into a volatile 25-year marriage to Alice (Marian Mercer). “After 90 years, Strindberg is still on the nose for marriages. Of course, he’s taken it to the nth degree. But if the problems of marriage were acted out more, this is what would develop. There’s this game they play--’You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’--which is just the way that life is.”

Ryan knows whereof he speaks. A veteran of two divorces, he is also a veteran of this play--except that when he did it with Viveca Lindfors and Rip Torn in 1970 at Arena Stage in Washington, he played Edgar’s younger friend, Kurt, the third side of the triangle that is the focus of the play. “They bounce off each other,” said Ryan, 55. “But the roles are very different. Kurt is passive and the captain is very aggressive.”

There does seem to be that brusque, he-man, often sinister quality to many of his roles.

“I didn’t always play heavies--and I still don’t always do them,” said the gravel-voiced actor. “It’s just that the heavies are memorable, and usually they’re good parts.” He quips that as a result of his numerous square-jawed mili tary roles. “People come to attention when I walk by.”

After living hand-to-mouth on New York stage roles (including “Othello,” “The Price,” “Medea” and “Baal”) in the ‘50s and ‘60s, two stints on daytime soaps (“All My Children” and “Santa Barbara”) made Ryan an object of mass recognition in the mid ‘80s. “You can’t even go to shopping malls,” he said grumpily. “And I like going to malls. The number of people who watch those things is incredible. And they always call you by your character’s name.”

He has no illusions, however, that this status resembles stardom. “I was 36 years old, touring with Salome Jens in ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten,’ when they offered me this movie,” he said, referring to the 1970 Western “Monte Walsh.” “So I said ‘OK, guys.’ But I never had a game plan. Stars make plans. (Paul) Newman had a plan, (Robert) Redford had a plan, Tom Cruise has a plan. It’s all mapped out. There are very few accidents.”

There is no jealousy in his tone. The eyes are narrowed, but there is no discernible emotion behind them. “Since I never became a star, I’ve never gotten any real money,” he stated. “I got a good salary, but never got any bucks . They’d offer a part to Bob Mitchum or somebody and they’d turn it down, so they’d get me for a third of the money--which was still a lot of money. And the parts, like ‘Patton’ or ‘The Margaret Bourke-White Story,’ were really nice things.”

Yet there’s also been a lot of inevitable down time between projects. Does it make him nuts?

“Nah. I play tennis, do a little painting, get divorces.” If one wonders at Ryan’s apparent lack of concern--or aggression--he isn’t ruffled. “I don’t know that it has to do with being lazy or being afraid or taking the easiest route.”

Did he ever work too much? “This year I did. In January, I did nothing. Did nothing in February, nothing in March or April. In May I did a little TV show, in June another one. And then I did this play.” He looks up, pleased with his little joke.

In a moment, however, he’s serious again. “What do I think about for my future? Well, it’s getting close to retirement time. So you start thinking about the end of your career, rather than the beginning of it. I’m getting character parts now, less leading men. I remember getting this great script and thinking, ‘This is wonderful . Why didn’t they get Redford?’--and then suddenly realizing that they wanted me for the father.”

He sighed. “That’s what I am. I’m three times older than most of these guys. But then I walk down the street and see a picture of Kevin Kline playing ‘Hamlet’ and I say, ‘That pipsqueak.’ I also say, ‘Jesus, I’ll never get to play ‘Hamlet’ again. I’m too old to play ‘Hamlet.’ But that happens to everybody. One day you realize you’re a little older--even though your insides haven’t changed. They’re still as immature as ever.”