Powerful play brings familiar face to Las Vegas

You may not recognize Stephen Macht’s name, but you definitely know his face.

Everybody does. Everybody who’s ever watched TV in the past four-plus decades, that is.

Currently, Macht plays law professor Henry Gerard on “Suits” — which just happens to star son Gabriel Macht as hot-shot New York lawyer Harvey Specter. (“It’s nothing but a blessing,” Macht says of appearing on TV with his son.)

Before his “Suits” gig, however, Gabriel’s dad has played everyone from “Cagney & Lacey” lawyer David Keeler, title character Chris Cagney’s love interest, to “Knots Landing’s” Joe Cooper, brother of series protagonist Karen.

As proof of his I’d-know-you-anywhere recognizability, Macht recalls an Australian encounter with a drunk Aborigine who put aside the didgeridoo he was playing to acknowledge Macht with a hearty “ ‘Brother! Knot’s Landing!’ ” (Macht’s rendition of the greeting is almost as gleeful as the extended laugh that follows.)

He can play heroes, such as Lt. Col. “Yonni” Netanyahu in the fact-based TV-movie “Raid on Entebbe.” His villains range from Benedict Arnold in the “George Washington” miniseries to “General Hospital” baddie Trevor Lansing.

For all that, however, Macht’s most interesting role just might be the one he plays off-screen: that of an ordained Jewish chaplain.

And that role, in turn, informs the three he plays in “My Name Is Asher Lev,” which Jewish Repertory Theatre of Nevada presents in a fully staged reading this weekend at Temple Sinai.

Based on Chaim Potok’s best-selling novel, set in post-World War II Brooklyn, “Asher Lev” focuses on a young Jewish painter torn between his Hasidic upbringing and his drive to fulfill his artistic promise.

Jeff Leibow, who recently finished a seven-year Las Vegas run as “Jersey Boys’ ” Nick Massi, portrays “Asher Lev’s” conflicted title character.

Macht, 71, plays multiple roles, including Asher’s difficult yet loving father, a wise yet worldly rabbi and Asher’s artistic mentor, a secular Jew who encourages him to “be a great artist,” because “it is the only justification for all the pain you are about to cause.” Michelle Azar plays Asher’s mother, among other characters.

Director (and JRTN co-founder) Norma Morrow has worked with Macht before — and not just in the theater troupe’s Las Vegas production of Neil Simon’s “Rumors.”

At the Beverly Hills Playhouse in California, Macht and Morrow both attended master classes presented by director and producer Milton Katselas. (“Milton walked in and everyone would stand up and clap,” Morrow recalls. “He had the crowd adoring him.”)

Macht “is a natural for ‘Asher Lev,’ ” adds Morrow, “not only being a marvelous actor … but he’s such a spiritual man, I couldn’t think of anybody more appropriate to embody all these characteristics.”

Macht, Leibow and Azar (whose husband, Jonathan Aaron, is the rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills) will participate in question-and-answer sessions following this weekend’s performances.

“Having a rabbi’s wife and a chaplain will be interesting to converse with,” Morrow observes, especially considering “Asher Lev’s” central conflict, centering on “one young man’s turmoil with faith, family and legacy.”

Macht didn’t pay much attention to the “faith” part of his family legacy during his younger years, he acknowledges.

It wasn’t until 1980 — when an actors’ strike prevented Macht from w0rking on his TV series “American Dream” — that he, his wife, Suzanne, and their kids (Gabriel was 8 at the time) visited Israel.

At the suggestion of his producer, Barney Rosenzweig (who would go on to produce “Cagney & Lacey”), Macht visited a Jewish agency in Jerusalem, where a former paratrooper reintroduced Macht to his Jewish roots, from “walking the Bible” with him to showing him the grave of the real-life hero he played in “Raid on Entebbe.”

For two weeks, “he pushed every button,” Macht says of his spiritual guide, who told him, “ ‘You don’t have to come to Israel — go back and do good things for Jews.’ ”

So, while pursuing his acting career, Macht became a spokesman for the Jewish National Fund, went on Jewish Federation trips to Israel and “involved myself in Jewish plays in L.A.”

An even more dramatic experience, however, inspired him to become a chaplain.

He and Suzanne were on a road trip through rural Kansas on Interstate 70 when their SUV hit a patch of black ice — and swerved, head-on, into an 18-wheeler.

“It demolished the car,” Macht remembers, but “we escaped.” And at the moment of impact, “I felt some presence,” he adds.

“There comes a point in every person’s life,” the actor reflects, when “you’ll find your own 18-wheeler. And what are you going to do about it now that you’ve survived?”

His response was to “learn my Jewishness” — and study to become a rabbi.

Because “my Hebrew skills were not good enough” for that, however, Macht became a chaplain, enabling him to officiate at such life-changing events as weddings, bar mitzvahs and burials.

“You’re never more yourself than when you’re marrying, burying, doing births and bar mitzvahs,” he says. “The best of you comes out.”

Even better, “you don’t have to go through a writer to get to me,” Macht explains. “The ritual acts like a magnet. It pulls out what’s already in there.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.