New York — Jane Fonda says critics “excoriated” her 2005 movie, “Monster-in-Law,” a popcorn comedy with Jennifer Lopez that marked her return to filmmaking after a 15-year hiatus. But Fonda says the project relaunched her career and connected her with a new generation of fans.

It also emboldened her to try Broadway again.

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Joan Marcus

Broadway’s ‘33 Variations’ a new play written and directed by Moises Kaufman features Jane Fonda as Dr. Katherine Brandt and Zach Grenier (background) as Ludwig Van Beethoven.

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On Monday night, after a 46-year absence, the two-time Oscar winner and political activist who became one of Atlanta’s own when she married (and later divorced) media mogul Ted Turner, returns to the Great White Way in “33 Variations.”

Moisés Kaufman’s new play, in previews since last month, is about a musicologist on a frantic quest to solve a mystery about the music of Beethoven, even as she succumbs to Lou Gehrig’s disease.

As Fonda’s iconic image looms on the signs outside the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, where the show runs through May 24, the still controversial Vietnam War protester is crafting an intimate self-portrait via the Internet — rather than let the media shape it for her.

She posts on her blog regularly, sometimes several times a day, at janefonda.com and files Twitter comments between acts. From the vantage point of her makeup mirror, she has unmasked the insular backstage world of theater in ways that many find refreshing, if not unprecedented.

“I would generally characterize Broadway as being sort of not ahead of the curve when it comes to technology,” David Binder, the lead producer of “33 Variations,” said. “So it seems funny that our 71-year-old star is Twittering.”

Sitting on a sofa in her dressing room with her fluffy white dog, Tulea, by her side, Fonda said the social networking is “a whole new experience for me.”

Until last summer, she had never Googled.

“I thought, ‘Well, if I can take people through day by day, it might be interesting.’ Now I have to figure out [what’s next], because I am being asked by people on the blog, ‘Well, when the play’s over, are you going to continue?’ And I don’t know how to answer.”

A ‘comfortable’ return

Fonda arrives for the interview in tears, later explaining that she was moved by an e-mail she had just opened from a fan who saw the play the night before. Looking Garbo-esque in a black knit cap and sunglasses that she never removes during a 45-minute conversation, she is eager to talk about “33 Variations,” which deals with issues of obsession, mortality and family. (Playwright-director Kaufman is best-known for directing the Pulitzer Prize-winning “I Am My Own Wife” and creating “The Laramie Project” with his Tectonic Theatre Project.)

Fonda says she wasn’t thinking about working in the theater — “until I got this play.”

“I mean, I’ve gotten offers to do plays in the last 10 years, but they didn’t beckon to me.”

Playing the role of musicologist Katherine Brandt has been more thrilling than nerve-racking, she said.

“There was no, ‘Oh my God, can I do this again?’ I mean, there was in the beginning, but the minute I got onstage, you know, my voice is no problem. It’s easy for me to project. I do a lot of public speaking, so I’m very comfortable on the stage,” Fonda said.

Indeed, Fonda spends a good deal of her Atlanta time focusing on the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, which she founded in 1995, and the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University.

Working with her on “33 Variations,” Kaufman said he was amazed by what a quick study the actress has been.

“When I first hired her, I thought, ‘She hasn’t been onstage in 46 years. I think there is going to be a lot of work to bring her stage chops back.’ Well, I tell you, she got on the stage on the first day of rehearsal, and it was like she had never left. … It was like riding a bicycle. I was so in awe of her.”

More stage ahead?

Compared to Fonda’s first Broadway play, 1960’s “There Was a Little Girl,” this gig seems easy.

“It was a pretty tough situation,” Fonda said of her Broadway debut, directed by Joshua Logan. “Josh suffered from depression and he disappeared a while from the play. The leading man got fired the day before we opened, and the man that played my father dropped dead. … I mean, there was a lot going on.

“It was my first play and I was never off stage. And I had to have a nervous breakdown in the play and I got raped in the play and it was very challenging.”

The actress said she’d love to perform again onstage — in Atlanta, even — if she can find the right part. Honoring the legacy of her stage-actor father, Henry Fonda, is important to her.

“He was a huge believer in regional theater, so I think before I die I will do something in Atlanta,” she said.

No matter where she goes, Fonda remains plagued by her image as a radical Vietnam-era protester.

In the 1970s, she was scorned for having her picture taken while perched on enemy artillery during a visit to Vietnam, and she continues to be reviled by some as “Hanoi Jane.” In recent weeks, a dozen protesters have picketed outside the Broadway playhouse.

“It makes me sad for them,” she said. “I get feedback from a lot of veterans, and it’s all positive. … I made some mistakes that made it very easy to demonize me. What was in my heart is not what people might think was in my heart because of the image” as an anti-war crusader.

For now, Fonda seems happy immersing herself in her work, inviting friends backstage to sip wine in her dressing room, then writing about it on her blog. (Scott Peacock, chef of Watershed restaurant in Decatur, has seen the play twice and plans to attend Monday’s opening.)

“They’ll start talking about the play and a particular thing in the play that touched them, and they’ll start crying,” Fonda said of her guests. “So we’ll drink wine and cry.”