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Wednesday, March 24, 1999

drama starring Natasha Richardson

A playwright can find his inspiration anywhere. Patrick Marber's idea for his new play, "Closer," which opens on Broadway March 25, came to him at an Atlanta strip joint.

It was three years ago, and Marber's first play, "Dealer's Choice," had opened at the Manhattan Theater Club. Then the troupe was invited to be part of the Olympic celebration in Atlanta, and one night after the show, the all-male cast decided to take a little R&R at a nearby strip club — of which Atlanta has plenty.

Marber went along, and a new play was born.

"That was definitely the starting point of the play," he said in an interview. "I began to think, who are these girls who became strippers? Most of them forge their identities, so I began exploring the idea of someone who concealed her identity in real life as well.

"I began to think that the character, when she is most disguised, is when she is most herself. The others, I knew fairly early on, would be people who had relationships with each other at various times. Four seemed to be a good number. The people meet each other, get together, split apart, join with others, get together. It's kind of a messy dance."

Marber may deem it "messy" — but London theater critics said it was sexually charged, sensual and fascinating. They showered it with last year's three top prizes for drama — the Olivier, the Evening Standard and the Critics' Circle awards.

In New York, "Closer" — which he also directed — stars Natasha Richardson, Rupert Graves, Anna Friel and Ciaran Hinds. Audiences will see them weave in and out of relationships with one another in a seemingly bloodless fashion — looking for love with all the wrong partners. The characters are so incredibly candid about their exploits that one almost feels embarrassed for them — yet it's a fascinating spectacle.

"I know people think they're brutally frank to each other, but in the play they're pushed to extremes," Marber says. "You never see these people just hanging out, relaxing. You never see the middle of the relationships, so it only seems to be about these incredibly brutal, frank people. But they're not — they're in the extremes — the beginnings and ends of affairs, the boring bits cut out. Had I shown you their always having a good time together, there wouldn't be a play."

Marber, 34, is a London native with an Oxford degree in English literature who enjoys gambling (blackjack and poker) and who came to playwriting in a roundabout way: Four years after he left the university, he was a standup comic.

"I worked comedy clubs, doing my own material," Marber recalls. "Generally, my stuff was surreal, quite opposite to the humor in my plays. Maybe it was the more lunatic side of my personality coming out. I never really expected to be a playwright. I simply took up a pen and began to write."

"Closer" has gone through different phases and stages, but its substance hasn't changed.

"I find audiences here quicker than Londoners," he says. "I thought I'd have to change things for here, make it more . . . I don't know what. Audiences seem to get the jokes quicker, which is nice.

"I'm happy with the response in the previews — people laughing in the right places, getting shocked in the right places and being very lively."