BROADWAY

Fonda on Her Triumphant Return

33 Variations breaks forty year absence.

A sneak peek of an upcoming play from the orchestra seats: The Daily Beast's Kevin Sessums spoke to Jane Fonda, who headlines the Moises Kaufman-directed, fourth-wall breaking 33 Variations. After a 40-year absence from the stage, Fonda plays a musicologist uncovering Beethoven's obsession with Anton Diabelli's waltz. The actress talked Ted Turner: "He's hysterical. You've got to have a sense of humor to be married to [him]"; her director: "I see him as a visionary and a conductor. And a weaver"; and ending her sabbatical from the stage: "All the plays I had been sent in the past were all old wine in a new cask." Kaufman has equally kind words for his leading lady: "I said to myself that a woman who measures time in the number of martinis is a woman I want to work with." The play—covering "obsession," "transcendence," and "intellectual passion"—opens March 9 on Broadway.