Bring in the Clown

“Who’s that strange person under there?”

Franklyn Seales wonders that every night when he looks at himself in makeup as the arch, aristocratic peacock Pavel, a former military man consumed with unrequited love in “Nothing Sacred,” George C. Walker’s funny, poignant adaptation of Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons” now playing at the Mark Taper Forum.

“I wanted to give the impression of a sad clown--without making it a clown actually. We’ve all met those fellows who have disastrous affairs; every month it’s a new one, a new broken heart.

“On the military side, I grew up in the West Indies, where there were a lot of retired English colonels and majors--they came there when England got too cold for them. So I think of them with their little sticks and stiff mustaches.”

Emigrating with his family to New York at 14, Seales (whose film credits include “The Onion Field” and “Southern Comfort”) was prepared to pursue art studies at Pratt when he accompanied a friend on her audition at Juilliard, reading the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet.” He was accepted on the spot, given a full scholarship--and a rigorous education. “The first two years were tough, because I really didn’t know anything about theater or acting or who Ibsen was.”

Nowadays, theater serves as a happy antidote to TV work (“Amen,” “Silver Spoons”). In spite of his ambivalence toward the medium, he admits, “ ‘Silver Spoons’ put me on the map. I cannot go any place without someone screaming, ‘Dexter!’ Which is very nice. It helped me to buy a home, has given me a little money.”

After “Sacred,” the actor (a member of the all-star L.A. Classic Theatre Works) begins a new film. “It’s about two black friends and one white one--dealing with issues of race, how people look at each other these days.”

Seales should know: In the commercial arena, a light-skinned black man is often in no-man’s land. “Either I’m not black enough or I look too Hispanic or Cuban. I have to be hired by someone who knows my work.”