ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602060038
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Amid much hoopla, the 280-year-old ``Gulliver's Travels'' reaches television screens Sunday and Monday (at 9 p.m. on WSLS-Channel 10) with most of its story and much of Jonathan Swift's vigorous satire intact.
Previous depictions have focused on Lemuel Gulliver's adventures among the tiny people of Lilliput and the giants of Brobdingnag. The NBC version carries him all the way to the noble, horsey Houyhnhnms and the subhuman Yahoos, then back to England, where he is put on trial for derangement because of his incredible tales.
Although the $30 million production exploits the adventure, Swift's blistering attack on 18th century England underscores the events, and those views remain pertinent nearly three centuries later.
Ted Danson stars as the long-suffering Gulliver, and Mary Steenburgen as his loyal wife, Mary. The supporting cast is replete with famous performers: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, John Gielgud, Geraldine Chaplin, Alfre Woodard, Ned Beatty, Edward Woodward, James Fox.
If the stately castles and sweeping plains of ``Gulliver's Travels'' seem fresh to movies, that's because they were filmed in Portugal.
``There are some incredible castles there that have not been seen in films,'' Steenburgen explained. Although her scenes were shot in London, she spent time in Portugal with her husband, Danson.
``Also, the castles could be copied in miniature,'' she added. ``A lot of the location choices on the film had to do with the necessity of shooting things from the perspective of a giant and the perspective of a tiny person.
``Our director, Charles Sturridge, who did `Brideshead Revisited,' had seen some of the castles in Portugal and couldn't stop thinking about them. So we went there.''
Steenburgen was spared the ordeal of long hours before a blue screen, which is later filled with special effects. That was her husband's task.
For Danson, ``Gulliver's Travels'' was a far cry from standing behind the bar at Cheers. Because he spent much of the time talking to Lilliputians or Brobdingnagians, he couldn't do ``eye-lines'' - looking eye-to-eye with other actors.
``If he did a scene with Peter O'Toole [a Lilliputian],'' said Steenburgen, ``O'Toole was on the ground, Ted was on a scaffolding 80 feet tall, shouting through a megaphone down at him. It was incredibly complicated and challenging.''
The honeymoon is obviously not over for Mary and Ted, as she attested: ``We have a wonderful time on screen and off screen. I love working with him.
``I really respect what he did with the role, and I think he was a wonderful choice. It's really the story about a traveler - if not an innocent, then an open person going through life. In many ways, that's a lot about what Ted is like. An amazing person.''
As Mary Gulliver, Steenburgen spends much of the movie yearning for her husband's return and fending off the advances of the evil Dr. Bates (James Fox), who is eager to declare her husband insane so he can marry her. Only in the late moments, when she defends her husband, is she allowed some drama.
``It was never going to be the greatest role of my career, and I knew that going in,'' she said. ``What I did was to inject something more romantic between the two of us that wasn't in the script originally - without going so far that it made it untrue.''
Jonathan Swift was no help in the romance department. The author, she observed, was ``almost misogynistic in the way he wrote the wife. ... It's almost disturbingly dismissive of women.''
The actress remembers studying the Swift book in high school back in Arkansas. After reading the Simon Moore script, she returned to the book.
``I was really blown away with the job he did,'' she said of Moore's adaptation. ``In the book, Gulliver goes away and has an amazing adventure, then he comes home for a while. Then he goes away and comes home for a while.
``It really wouldn't work for a film or television the way Jonathan Swift structured it. At the same time, the producers wanted to tell this tale better than it had been told before. Other films only told about the land of Lilliput; one, I think, included Brobdingnag. Nobody had ever told the other lands, which are really magical.
``The writer found this wonderful device of Gulliver defending his sanity and recounting his story. So it gave a flow to the piece.''
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen star in theby CNBminiseries, ``Gulliver's Travels,'' airing Sunday and Monday at 9
p.m. on WSLS-Channel 10. color. 2. Peter O'Toole stars as the
Emperor of Lilliput in NBC's production of ``Gulliver's Travels.''