Mr. Mantello directed Ms. Metcalf in the Off Broadway premiere of this twisty drama by Sharr White, which Manhattan Theater Club is transferring to the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in leaner and — from Ms. Metcalf’s perspective — meaner form. She is seated on the stage before the play begins, and now she never leaves it.  “The train pulls out of the station and just goes,” she said.  With its fiery confrontations and tearful reunions (of a sort), the part is the kind that gets noticed come awards season. And as Ms. Metcalf reaches a point in her career when the roles she is offered are too often “Andy’s Mom” and “Artie’s Mom” — two actual credits on her résumé — she has found a welcome home on the New York, Chicago and London stages. There are worse fates for a 57-year-old actress than having to deal with too much stage time.  Ms. Metcalf, who won an Obie Award for “The Other Place” in 2011, plays Juliana Smithton, a brilliant biophysicist whose self-described woes involve a missing child, a wonder drug and an unfaithful husband. The rest of the play calls into question some, most or all of the facts in the previous sentence (except for the part about the Obie), and it is up to Ms. Metcalf to convey these contradictory narrative threads while both courting and spurning the audience’s sympathy.  Juliana’s area of expertise is dementia, and her travails in the play have struck a nerve. “I have never been approached by so many audience members afterward, largely because of the subject matter,” Ms. Metcalf said in her dressing room after a rehearsal.  Perhaps because of the intensity she faces both onstage and in those postshow interactions, she sat completely still for much of the interview, unleashing her unmistakable, throaty bark of a laugh only once or twice. The only exceptions involved her rehearsal clothes: She wore a cardigan over a paint-spattered sweatshirt over a T-shirt, and, as she has done throughout her career, Ms. Metcalf peeled away the layers to reach her comfort level.  Or, as Mr. White described her approach to the text, “She keeps attacking it with a finer- and finer-grade sandpaper.”  The Off Broadway “Other Place,” presented by MCC Theater, marked a welcome reunion for Ms. Metcalf and Mr. Mantello, who had directed her on Broadway in “November,” David Mamet’s 2008 political comedy. “On opening night of ‘November,’ ” Mr. Mantello said, “I wrote her a note saying, ‘I will go anywhere any time to work with you again.’ ”  His itch to collaborate with her actually predates that note by some 24 years. That’s when Ms. Metcalf, a native of Edwardsville, Ill., came to New York City to appear in a revival of Lanford Wilson’s play “Balm in Gilead.” The production had originated in Chicago as an early effort by the Steppenwolf Theater Company, which was founded by some of her classmates at Illinois State University; she became a charter member of the group.  “Gilead” featured a 20-minute monologue by Ms. Metcalf, who played the naïve prostitute Darlene, for which she was presented her first Obie. (She was then married to one of the three Steppenwolf founders, Jeff Perry; their daughter, Zoe Perry, also appears in “The Other Place.”)  “Before I met her, my one goal in life was to work with her,” Mr. Mantello said. “When I graduated from drama school, I came to New York and saw her in ‘Balm in Gilead’ three or four times. It completely changed the way I felt about acting.”  It was the monologue that launched a thousand casting calls. Among the other enthusiasts were Frank Rich of The New York Times, who called it “one of the year’s most memorable theatrical events,” and the movie director Susan Seidelman, who quickly cast Ms. Metcalf in “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “Making Mr. Right.”  She found herself working steadily in television and film, in long runs (nine seasons as the title character’s sister on “Roseanne,” winning three Emmy Awards) as well as short runs (exactly one episode as a “Saturday Night Live” cast member), eventually playing both sweet moms (the “Toy Story” films) and not-so-sweet moms (“Scream 2”).  But she also appeared in more than 35 Steppenwolf productions along the way. The most recent of these, Lisa D’Amour’s caustic comedy “Detroit,” appeared certain to return Ms. Metcalf to Broadway last year. She appeared in “Detroit” both in Chicago and in London, but a planned New York transfer fell through, and the play opened in New York at Playwrights Horizons in an entirely new production.  This was just one of several recent Broadway near misses for Ms. Metcalf. She was featured in two Neil Simon plays scheduled to play in repertory in 2009, but “Brighton Beach Memoirs” closed within a week, and “Broadway Bound” never made it out of the rehearsal room. And she was originally slated to star with Patti LuPone in Mr. Mamet’s new play, “The Anarchist”; once word came about the “Other Place” transfer, however, she backed out and was replaced by Debra Winger.  “The Anarchist” closed after a mere 17 performances (not including previews). “I still am regretting the fact that I didn’t get to work with Patti and David in the same room,” she said. “And I hope I will someday.”  Meanwhile “The Other Place” spurred Ms. Metcalf to do a fair amount of scientific research. “I try to read as much as I can and jot down symptoms,” she said. “Then I go back to the script and say, ‘If I were to use that in the play, where would I put that in?’ I love the building part of rehearsals, even though I drive myself crazy during it.”  Mr. Mantello pointed out that Ms. Metcalf maximized the rehearsal period for both “November” and “The Other Place” by having the scripts memorized upon arrival. “It’s not a private process where you’re expected to tread water while she digs it out,” he said of her approach to acting. “She believes that it’s her responsibility to bring ideas, and it’s my responsibility to bring ideas, and it’s through that process that better ideas come out.”  Ms. Metcalf said with a wry grin, “I would imagine that there are rehearsal rooms where this style wouldn’t be appreciated.” Still, she and Mr. Mantello both spoke of their desire to mount a “Death of a Salesman” with Nathan Lane, her good friend and “November” co-star. She said she’ll appear next fall in a Lincoln Center Theater production of “Domesticated,” by another Steppenwolf veteran, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Bruce Norris (“Clybourne Park”).  Mr. Norris has made a name for himself by blending incisive drama and pitch-black humor, a quality that Ms. Metcalf has repeatedly displayed since “Balm in Gilead” more than 30 years ago. She showed it in 2011, when she performed part of Darlene’s monologue at a Lanford Wilson memorial; she’s showing it now in “The Other Place”; and she even tried to show it during one of American theater’s greatest tragedies.  “I did ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ in London this summer,” she said, “and I know it sounds blasphemous, but I looked for the comic moments in that. Being able to mix those two qualities within a play? That’s perfection.”
Laurie Metcalf is back on Broadway with a familiar show, âThe Other Placeâ (she did it off Broadway); a familiar director (Joe Mantello); and a familiar co-star (her daughter, Zoe Perry).