Familiar face returns to island for TWN play

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Jeff Cook is a father figure in "A View of the Harbor." He looks much the same as he did when he was a Bosun's Locker regular 40 years ago: baby blue eyes, blond hair, chiseled features and tall, slim physique. What has changed about former islander Jeff Cook is that his fishing days have been cast aside and the star over his film and stage career is rising.

Cook returned to Nantucket a couple of weeks ago at the request of his friend and actor John Shea, recently named artistic director of the Theatre Workshop, to portray the role of Daniel, a shrewd, powerful, wealthy businessman who alienates his son Nick in the Richard Dresser play "A View of the Harbor." Coincidentally, Cook and Dresser both grew up in or near Worcester and Cook's mother knows the Dresser family.

Cook first visited Nantucket with a hometown pal and loved the adventure of the boat trip from Woods Hole and the beauty of town and the island's outskirts. He moved here in 1964 and took up commercial fishing. He spent a couple of years traveling as a member of the Merchant Marine, then in 1980 he moved into a boathouse on his parent's New Castle, N.H. property and began an involvement with the theater through Portsmouth's Seacoast Reparatory.

"I decided to give it a shot," said Cook sitting in front of his thick script including 25 pages of dialogue for Daniel's character. "I thought I might have a leaning towards it. My grandmother was an opera singer and my mother used to take me to some of the best plays coming out of New York, so I always had a deep appreciation for the arts."

It was while Cook was studying acting with Seacoast that Shea called him and asked him to move to Los Angeles and become his assistant. Cook was hired as a stand-in, and in 1985 snagged his first on-camera scene working with Shea and Richard Crenna in "A Case of Deadly Force." He gained a good deal of experience in 1991 by playing in a well cast CBS series "WIOU," a show about a financially strapped TV station, then earned a role in the film "Southie" directed by Shea in 1997, the part of a pirate in "Hook" and another working with Farrah Fawcett in "Small Sacrifices."

Despite his past success and exposure to national talent, Cook said his new role as Daniel is among his most daunting. About 25 years had passed since Cook's last play when Shea dialed him up and urged him to return to the stage.

"I've never worked harder on anything in my life," Cook said, gearing up for a three-hour rehearsal on Thursday night. "I've done film and TV with John, but this is a 75-page play. I don't know if I can pull it off, but I'm trying to give it the old college try.

"I've never had a more challenging thing. John threw me right under the bus. I'm totally humbled by this. I always wanted to pay this place back because it's been so good to me for so many years. My first gut reaction was to run, but I refuse. A lot of people have placed their faith in me, and I'm going to do my best to validate this."

Cook stars in "A View of the Harbor" with Mark Carapezza, who plays Daniel's son Nick, Cheryl Fudge, who plays Nick's sister Kathryn, and Gabrielle Gould who plays Nick's girlfriend Paige. The performance is being directed by David McCandless and opens on June 11.

The story, a somewhat dark comedy, centers around Nick's upbringing in an unbelievably rich family. The scenes take place in the yard and on the porch of their rundown mansion in coastal Maine where Nick and Paige visit after Kathryn alerts her brother that their father has had a stroke. Nick, who has been away from his demanding father making it on his own in one of the family's factories, faces Daniel again and is pulled back into the dysfunctional life he fled and knowledge of family secrets previously hidden.

Cook, who will remain on island until the play closes June 27, is enjoying staying in ,Sconset near where he once lived in Cod Fish Park. He is also a singer, and has an open invitation to croon "What a Wonderful World," "What'll I Do?" and other songs at The Summer House any night while he is here. What matters most to him, however, is being part of the tight, talented group he is performing with for TWN.

"I have the utmost respect for Mark, Cheryl, Gabrielle and David," he said. "It is a pleasure being included in this cast and to work with them." I