Liv for today Supporter of Belfast theater, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann still busy in film

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Though she has made 47 films as an actress and is now a successful director, for Liv Ullmann, the greatest joy in her craft came in community theater.

“Never will theater be so important than when you are part of an ensemble,” Ullmann said Saturday, shortly after touring the renovated and reconfigured Belfast Maskers theater on the waterfront in Belfast. Ullmann and her partner, Donald Saunders, who owns the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, provided the money for the revamped space, and they were in town as part of dedication of the Liv Ullmann and Donald Saunders Stage.

At 61, the Norwegian actress who captivated Swedish director and producer Ingmar Bergman – for whom she appeared in eight films in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and who fathered her daughter, Linn – radiates beauty. Dressed modestly in a beige pants suit, with piercing blue eyes and her blond hair loose to her shoulders, she left no doubt as to why her face once graced both Newsweek and Time magazines.

In an interview Saturday, Ullmann recalled her first years as an actress, beginning at the age of 18 in a small-town community theater in Norway. The work in the years that followed, she said, never topped the thrill of being part of an ensemble, where everyone pitched in to create the magic of live performance, from those who worked on the sets and costumes, to those who played the lead roles.

“I wish I was part of it again,” she said.

Because she cherished that experience, she said, she wanted to help the Maskers.

Ullmann has known Belfast residents David and Lilias Outerbridge for almost 30 years, she explained, and has heard David talking enthusiastically about the Maskers since its beginnings in the late 1980s. Lilias was one of the founders of the community theater group, along with the late Basil Burwell, Diane Coller Wilson and others.

David Outerbridge edited Ullmann’s best-selling autobiography, “Changing,” which was published in 1976. She joked about how she wanted to impress the world with her colorful writing, using phrases describing the “sun kissing the waves on the beach,” but Outerbridge reined her in.

“He was an incredible, incredible editor,” she said. Outerbridge also wrote a photographic biography of Ullmann, “Without Makeup,” and in the early 1990s interviewed her for Lear’s magazine.

It’s clear that Ullmann – who speaks several languages – loves words, and grows animated when speaking about creativity, and the ideas that drive films and plays.

Ullmann and Saunders traveled to Belfast in the early 1990s to see Ali McGraw appear in the Maskers’ production of “Love Letters,” and came away impressed with the troupe, she said. When the troupe planned the new theater, which features a floor-level stage, with seating on three sides, Outerbridge talked to Ullmann and Saunders.

As a real estate developer, Outerbridge said, Saunders understood the “bricks and mortar” reality of the challenges the Maskers faced.

On Saturday, Saunders said Outerbridge’s enthusiasm for the project was contagious. “He had a one-track mind,” he joked, and “pushed all the right buttons” to get Saunders involved.

“It was really his gift,” Ullmann said of the donation to the Maskers, gesturing toward Saunders. Though the amount hasn’t been disclosed, the gift is said to be substantial.

The Ullmann-Saunders donation also paid for new lights, a hydraulic lift to make it easier to change lighting, a fog machine, and a ventilation system at the theater.

“The gift, the idea came from him,” she said. Saunders grew to love the theater passionately after he met Ullmann. Saunders said he first met her in 1983 at a cultural event in Boston, having been charged with picking up the actress at the airport. Her name meant nothing to him at the time, he said, so he had written it on the palm of his hand to remember who he would be meeting.

Since marrying her, he has come to understand the power of theater. On Saturday, he recalled traveling with Ullmann when she acted in a Harold Pinter play, not wanting to miss a single performance.

Though Ullmann’s film work has continued through the years, mostly in European productions, she remains best-known for her collaboration with Bergman. To those who are unfamiliar with her work on film, she suggests “The Immigrants” and “The New Land,” from the early 1970s, both available on videotape.

In recent years, she has turned to directing. “Kristin Lavransdatter,” which she wrote and directed in 1998, became the most successful film at the box office ever in Scandinavian countries. Last year, she directed “Faithless,” from a screenplay by Bergman, which was hailed as one of the best foreign films of 2000.

Her next project will be a biography of Ola Bull, a violinist who captivated Norway in the late 19th century, a contemporary and friend to playwright Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen. Bull was a gifted musician who awed audiences, but mostly improvised his music, so there is no written record of his work, she said.

Today, even in Norway, few know who he was, a fact which intrigues her.

“What is it that you fall in love with, and what is it that you forget, and what is it that you remember?” she said, outlining the themes of the film.

Ullmann recently concluded a term as president of the Cannes Film Festival. Even there, at which the creme-de-la-creme of films are screened, she found little to change her view that movies are in a period of decline. Of the dozens of movies the jury had to review, only about five were worthwhile, she said.

Asked which films she has seen recently and enjoyed, she lists “The Widow of St. Pierre,” with Juliette Binoche, and “Memento.” She also praises the English actor Emily Watson, who has appeared in the Norwegian film “Breaking the Waves,” the English film “Hilary and Jackie,” and most recently in “Angela’s Ashes.”

“She’s incredible, wonderful,” she said of Watson.

“You can still make better films in Europe,” she said, because the state often provides financial support. But in the U.S., film has declined in the 35 years that she has been working in the business.

“It’s worse,” she said, because audiences are so impatient, and want something that is accessible. “That’s why it’s so great that a place like this,” she said, returning to the Maskers, “is in a town, and lives and breathes.”

In the tradition of community theater, Ullmann uses the same crew of costume designers, electricians, and make-up artists in all her films, she explained, so that they work as a team.

Ullmann and Saunders attended a Sunday matinee performance of the Maskers’ production of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in the new theater. She sat rapt, leaning forward intently through much of the second act. When it ended, she extended her arms to applaud enthusiastically.

When Outerbridge introduced her and Saunders, Ullmann again turned to the cast and applauded them, and later, hugged Greg Marsankis, who played the lead.

“I really think you are wonderful,” she said to the cast, and told the audience how important it was to have the Maskers presenting theater, tapping into what is universal about life. “This kind of theater makes us believe we are close to this,” she said.