WRITING TEAM READIES ‘MAIL’ FOR DELIVERY

A lunch interview with Michael Rupert and Jerry Colker is not your average encounter with a big-budget musical writing team. They play with their silverware, talk in funny voices and cavort on the lawn. They tell you about their favorite colors. Rupert can’t wait to point out Colker’s punctuality problem. Colker swears that Rupert makes the cast kiss his ring every morning.

They’re serious kidders, these two. And it’s that combination of silliness and seriousness that they bring to their new musical, “Mail” (opening tonight at the Pasadena Playhouse). It’s the story of Alexander Berkowitz, a struggling writer and otherwise nice guy who attempts to cope with a period of work/personal pressure by not coping: He drops out, disappears for four months. As the play opens, he’s returning to his apartment, greeted by an enormous stack of mail--which proceeds to magically and musically come to life.

“It all started in 1985, when Rupe and I were doing a show that was supposed to go to Broadway and didn’t,” said Colker. “This business is so iffy; you get tired of waiting for the next thing to come along. I’d been writing for years and years, and I thought, ‘Why don’t I do something for the theater?’ Meanwhile, Michael--who’s always trying to determine what he’s going to do with the rest of his life--decided that if I came up with something decent, he’d produce. So I worked on it for six months, then started to look for a composer. Then one day, Mike said to me, ‘Jer, I took one of your songs and put it to music.’ ”

He grinned. “That was it: the birth of ‘the team.’ Kicking and screaming, Michael Rupert became a composer--and the two of us basically spent that summer learning how to write songs together.” Together separately, that is.

“I don’t let him near my piano bench,” growled Rupert, 35. Added Colker, 32, “This is not ‘Ishtar.’ I know Warren and Dusty will be upset when we say that that’s not how we work. Initially, I sit down and write out the book and lyrics. I give him a lyric, describe the feeling, then he sits down in another room all by himself--and sometimes in 10 minutes, sometimes within a day or two days. . . . “

The result of their first collaboration was “Three Guys Naked From the Waist Down,” a spoof of small-time comics gone big time, which had a well-received Off Broadway run in 1980, and has since been revived many times--including a concert version at the Pasadena Playhouse last March.

“I just look at Michael and laugh,” observed Colker of their partnership success. “We have this strange communication where we do silly things, act like we’re 5 years old--everyone looks at us like we’re crazy. See, we started out as friends (they met as actors in a Broadway production of “Pippin”; Colker’s future wife was playing Rupert’s mother), then the other sort of came together. Half the time we’re just kidding around, having fun. I enjoy the hell out of it.”

Yet how did they know the work was valuable? “Maybe it’s naivete,” said the locally born, Harvard-educated Colker, “but when we first started, I just believed that what we were doing was good. I’m a chronic taper--it used to drive Mike crazy--I’d tape everything we did and listen to it morning and night. And I’d constantly play it for people to see if they liked it. I kept getting very positive feedback. Of course, the success of ‘Three Guys’ was a major confirmation.”

In spite of that good feeling, “Mail” took its time getting off the ground. Begun in 1984, the project went on indefinite hold as each pursued separate projects, including Rupert’s stint in “Sweet Charity” (which he played at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1985 and later on Broadway, winning a Tony for best supporting actor in a musical). Regardless of the time apart, Colker noted “you do come back with the same good feelings--and also with a lot more objectivity. You look at something you were crazy about before and say, ‘I think I can do better than this’--and then, hopefully, you do.”

One of the things that seemed determined from the start was that Rupert would play the lead. Said an earnest Colker: “If Michael weren’t on the creative team, we would’ve sought him out to play the role. I’m serious. As for me: Well, I’d love to be in it, but I’m not black and 50 years old and a woman--there isn’t a role that’s right for me. So I get to sit in the front row and watch.”

The Pasadena-born Rupert doesn’t have that luxury. But in spite of what he calls “occasional overload,” he’s enjoying the challenge: “As an actor, you’re interpreting words. As a composer, you’re interpreting lyrics. To me, writing music is almost like acting. Whether I’m writing or acting, I’m still performing.” As for overall pressures, he acknowledged, “A lot of people are now making a living because Jerry and I sat in a room the summer of ‘84; they’re depending on what we did. So, sure, you do feel that responsibility.”

Colker sees the dual roles somewhat differently. “When you write, you’re more of a parent. When you act, you feel more like a kid. And as an actor, you’re more immediately vulnerable: ‘How am I doing?’ You’re very insular and self-conscious. As a writer, it’s like this is your family, your characters--and you have to take care of all of them, fulfill their needs. If they need a rewrite, you’ve got to give it to them. So as a writer, you take on a little more responsibility; as an actor, you get to play a little more.”

In the midst of all this, don’t egos take a pounding?

“We yell and scream at each other sometimes,” Rupert allowed. “Everybody does. It’s because we all feel so strongly about what we’re doing. But the point is that we all want the same thing: We want to make the best show possible.” Added Colker: “A collaboration really is like a marriage. The reason we were so successful with ‘Three Guys’ and why we’re going to be successful with ‘Mail’--hopefully,” he gulped, “is that we know how to work the problems out. We get them out quickly, cleanly and completely . . . just as any good husband and wife should do.”