Entertainment Weekly

"BUNNY BUNNY"

IN OFF BROADWAY'S BUNNY BUNNY, PAULA COLE CHANNELS THE 'SNL' STAR

by Jason Cochran

In 1975, when Paula Cale was just five years old, Alan Zweibel met Gilda Radner. Two decades later, Cale is introducing today's theatergoers to Radner, by way of Zweibel--and Cale's own, less literal connection to the late comedian.

"As cheesy as this sounds, I've met a kindred spirit in Gilda--and I wasn't expecting to," says Cale of the role that's made her a New York leading lady. Cale portrays Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989, in Bunny Bunny--Gilda Radner: A Sort of Romantic Comedy, a play by Zweibel, one of the founding writers of Saturday Night Live. Adapted from his 1994 book about the colleagues' 14-year friendship, the play tells its story through conversations between Radner and Zweibel, played by Bruno Kirby (Donnie Brasco, City Slickers).

From the moment Cale auditioned, Zweibel saw a link between the actresses. "She had a big pocketbook and was chewing gum," he says. "By the fifth or sixth thing she said, it got spooky." Director Christopher Ashley agrees: "There's something about Paula's spirit that's very Gilda."

Chatting animatedly at a Greenwich Village eatery near the Off Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre, where Bunny Bunny has just begun an open run, Cale stresses that she's not imitating Radner. "It's more of a challenge not to imitate her," says the 26-year-old actress, tomboyish in no makeup and overalls, again chewing gum. But there's no escaping the mutual qualities that drew Cale to the role of Radner--and Zweibel and Ashley to Cale. Her voice has Radner's Midwestern keen, though it's a tad smokier; her body language conveys the same petite huggability; her conversation is speckled with ditsy irony, ricocheting wit, and a sweet sisterliness. Like Radner, who was married to SNL bandleader G.E. Smith before she wed Gene Wilder, Cale married a musician, guitarist Bennett Cale, in 1995. And earlier this year, her mother died of cancer at age 60.

Cale has been working through Radner's distinctive persona since last fall, when she originated the role at the Philadelphia Theater Company, though her screen career has been more harried. When she arrived in Hollywood three years ago (reprising the role in Steve Martin's play Picasso at the Lapin Agile that she performed in Chicago), she landed the role of McGovern on Murphy Brown. "After the first taping, I remember driving home and just sobbing," Cale says. "I thought, Wow, I did it." And she'll be doing more of it. She's just signed for the peachy part of Tea Leoni's little sister (and Mary Tyler Moore's daughter) on NBC's pet sitcom The Naked Truth next season.

But Cale's biggest challenge, she says, is being a food lover while playing the famously twiggy Radner. "I just keep telling the costumer, 'You have to make the clothes bigger so they look skinny on me!" she howls, virtually leaping into her lunchtime bowl of tortilla soup. "I'm not about to go Method acting on this."

--Jason Cochran