Song of the Sister : * ‘I Never Sang for My Father’ isn’t just about Dad and Son, the director says. It’s a woman’s story, too.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD —  For all those who think “I Never Sang for My Father” is a play about a son’s relationship with his father, Juanin Clay has news for you: It’s just as much a story about the grown-up daughter.

“I think the relationship of the daughter to both her parents is devastating--and so timely now,” says Clay, whose staging of Robert Anderson’s 10-character drama begins previews tonight at Group Repertory Theatre. “It’s about what happens to young girls after (age) 8 that robs them of their confidence as they enter the male-defined worldview. It’s such a universal story. You just change a couple of the references and it could happen anywhere. And it’s just as much a woman’s story as a man’s.”

Clay’s introduction to the play came 15 years ago when an acting teacher suggested that she work on the sister role. “I’ve picked it up and reread it at least once a year ever since,” she says. “People are always talking about the graying of America, taking care of the aging parent. I think the character’s whole struggle in the play is not his parents dying, but wanting to make peace before they die. I see people struggling with those things all the time: loyalty, responsibility, the right to live one’s own life.”

The story of familial Angst was originally taken by Anderson from his own screenplay “The Tiger,” and first produced on Broadway in 1968 by Gil Cates--who also directed the 1970 film with Gene Hackman.

For her version, Clay has insisted that the four actors playing the Garrison clan meet at each other’s houses for weekly “family” dinners. “It’s as much to build a sense of familiarity as anything--that ease you often don’t see onstage when actors have only known each other six weeks,” she says.

Actress Florence Schauffler, who plays matriarch Margaret Garrison opposite Logan Ramsay’s Tom, has her own long-term connection with the material: She became friends with the playwright more than 50 years ago, when she was a young drama student in Boston. Anderson was then a Harvard student performing in her school’s thrice-yearly productions--he later married Schauffler’s teacher, Phyllis Stohl. In the late ‘40s, Schauffler appeared in Anderson’s play “Johnny Comes Marching Home” in New York and, in 1986, in his “Solitaire/Double Solitaire” at Group Rep.

“Mothers of that generation--I see a lot of my own mother” in Margaret’s character, says the actress, who notes strong parallels between the relationships explored in “Solitaire” and “Father.”

“The head of the family was the head of the family; families were not democracies. But in each play, mothers have a certain power: the caretakers, the woman’s power. The crux of this story, I think, is everyone staying in their own place, and the difficulty of expressing love for one another.”

Born in New York’s Westchester County, director Clay earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Smith College and a master’s degree in education at Harvard before netting a National Science Foundation Grant to travel to Antarctica. After theater work in New York, she landed in Los Angeles in 1979, followed by another seven years in New York. Finally she returned to Los Angeles in 1991. In 1992 she co-wrote (with Robert Gallo) and directed “King of the City: An Evening With Al Capone,” which played at Group Rep and toured at Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival.

The director has set “Father” on what she describes as a black box set. “And we have a curtain, this scarfy thing placed halfway upstage, that we’re using like a panel to change sets, indicate a change of place. Also, there’ll be a lot of music and sound to float the whole piece. . . . The delicacy of the changes will, I hope, keep the audience drawn along and in with the characters and movement.”

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “I Never Sang for My Father.”

Location: Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.

Hours: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Closes April 17.

Price: $10; discounts for students and seniors.

Call: (818) 769-PLAY.