People

By Guy D. Garcia

Most actresses would give anything to appear simultaneously in a major movie and a New York play. Last year Glenn Close was doing just that, in the film The Big Chill and Broadway's The Real Thing. This year for a topper, Close, 37, is trying two of each. The Connecticut-born actress opens this week in an off-Broadway play, Childhood, and recently did an off-off-Broadway performance of Arthur Honegger's oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake. At the same time, she has two movies in the can: The Jagged Edge, a courtroom drama, and Maxie, a romantic comedy about a 1920s actress whose spirit materializes in the present. "I love doing comedy," enthuses Close, "and I love dressing up." But given the choice, as she has been, Close prefers the real stage to the chill of film. Her roots are in the theater, she says. "It gives me a chance to relate to a live audience, and there's the continuity and opportunity to create something every night."