John Lithgow appeared at the finale of the Aspen Music festival not to reprise one of his famous, far-out characters, such as the commander/alien father on the hit TV series “Third Rock from the Sun” or the transsexual Roberta Muldoon from the movie “The World According to Garp.”
He was here to participate as the reader in “Words and Music” with his good friend, virtuoso cellist Lynn Harrell, and pianist Simon Mulligan.
Lithgow, 52, is a performer of dazzling versatility–he played five roles in Brian De Palma’s film, “Raising Cain.” He has appeared in more than two dozen films, has two Academy Award nominations as well as Emmy, Golden Globe, American Comedy and Screen Actors Guild awards.
Wouldn’t his fans be startled to hear him reading poetry to musical accompaniment?
“People are going to be shocked,” Lithgow admitted, cheerfully. “I like to defy people’s expectations and I like to surprise. I don’t know if it goes back to college days (he went to Harvard) when I used to direct opera and do multimedia things with dancers and actors and orchestra.
” `Third Rock’ is certainly a lark; it’s the kind of work I’m eager to do every day, and I’ll be doing it for a while. It’s been a fantastic kind of joke on the world.”
This summer’s theme for the Aspen Music Festival was Love and Death.
“Lynn called and asked if I would do a words and music and it was a wonderful treat and I said YES in an instant.
“His wife Linda suggested a World War I meditation — poets such as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen — something that would unify the first half with a dark, romantic feeling. Many of the poets died (in WW I), and the music we chose is deeply felt so it is a meditation on the death of young people.
“Lynn was saying this morning that many people listen to music and almost like the emperor’s new clothes, they don’t know how they’re supposed to be listening to it. They don’t know whether they’re supposed to be having mental pictures or if the music is supposed to have programmatic meaning to them. And it worries them because they are not accustomed it; they are not connoisseurs of music. This concert is just one way of suggesting, of guiding people’s perception to music.”
“It would be wonderful to get back into my youthful enthusiasms, (opera, multimedia performances) again,” Lithgow allows. “But I’m pretty booked up all of a sudden.
“When `Third Rock’ is over and I have the luxury of choosing what I want to do, I’ll probably find a film directing job–maybe direct on stage. I might do some painting, I originally wanted to be a painter; I had no intention of being an actor.”
