Great Kate

Before Serious Money opened last season on Broadway, Kate Nelligan hardly worked for two years. "I was thinking," she says, "whether I wanted to act, and concluding a lot of the time that I didn't." It hasn't been all smooth sailing for Nelligan since The Times of London hailed her as "the leading actress of her generation" eleven years ago. Her film career never gathered the winds predicted by early forecasts ("It really died after Eleni; it was as if I had leprosy"), and her critically acclaimed performance in David Hare's Plenty helped to brand the Canadian-raised, English-trained actress as a Brit with too much bite. Spoils of War, now on Broadway, should change all that. In this new play by Michael Weller (Moonchildren, Loose Ends), Nelligan delivers her warmest and most winning stage performance to date, as an American woman with a head steeped in dreams. Concludes Nelligan, "I'm glad to be back."

J.R.