It was the monologue that launched a thousand casting calls. In 1984 Laurie Metcalf made her New York stage debut, appearing alongside her Steppenwolf peers in John Malkovich's revival of Lanford Wilson's 1965 play Balm in Gilead. And in a sea of odd, unsympathetic characters, who ranged from heroin addicts to hookers in an upper Broadway café, it was Metcalf who stood out from the crowd.