Keeping the Faith

The conventional wisdom is that Cherry Jones can do anything. Certainly, she has proven her versatility as a stage actress in such shows as The Baltimore Waltz and Flesh and Blood, not to mention her Tony Award-winning turns in The Heiress and Doubt. Now she’s tackling a new role: Grace in Jonathan Kent’s revival of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, which begins performances at the Booth Theater on April 18. Jones stars alongside Ralph Fiennes as Grace’s husband, Frank, and Ian McDiarmid as Frank’s manager, Teddy, both of whom just completed a run of the play in the Dublin. Her role consists entirely of a devastating, 40-minute monologue that concludes the first act. I recently spoke with her about the show during a rehearsal break.

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THEATERMANIA: This is your first time doing a role that’s a monologue. Is it a major challenge?

CHERRY JONES: It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be because the musicality of the piece is so strong and the writing is so gorgeous. It really does follow a very logical emotional through line, with a few transitions that I’m trying to make specific. One day, I began it and it was just ghastly. Jonathan didn’t stop me, and I didn’t stop me because I wanted to see if I could find my way home and get back into it. If there had been a paying audience out there, they probably wouldn’t have booed, but it was not good.

TM: How did you make it better the next time?

CJ: After not feeling like we were getting anywhere, Jonathan said to me, “Something you do well is that you allow the audience to see what it is that you experience and what you’re feeling.” I realized that’s always going to be the key to any monologue, but especially one like this, which is the emotional core of the whole play. And then I did it and it was kind of remarkable, kind of breathtaking. I’m not saying that anyone watching it would have had that reaction; I’m saying that, for myself, it was one of the biggest rides of my life. Now I think I could keep doing this for the next two to three years.

TM: When they first approached you about the play, did you read the whole script or just Grace’s monologue?

CJ: I read the whole play, in order. I’m not one of those people who jumps ahead to find out the ending. I don’t want to know! Then I immediately decided that I wanted to do it. I was scared to death of it, but I thought, “That’s how you’re supposed to feel as an actor.”

TM: What was it about Grace that really spoke to you?

CJ: Honestly, more than the character, it was the music of the language. Jonathan told me at one point that he thinks her monologue begins as this Francis Bacon scream, then it’s her suppressing that, and then there is some hope that Grace will climb out of this desperate hole she finds herself in. The tension of the piece is that you see this woman being daft and gripping on for dear life. In rehearsals, we sit around and talk for an hour before we start, because it’s so devastating. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it; the monologue just resonates.

TM: Tell me what it’s like to work with Jonathan.

CJ: I don’t know how a director sits and listens to a monologue 500 times. He’s a true artist. With each rendering of the piece, he hears something new and sees something that he hadn’t seen before. He’s incredibly patient, generous, and supportive. I was concerned about taking this role. Eileen Atkins, who replaced me in Doubt, and I had this conversation about what it is like to replace someone. In a way, whereas Doug Hughes had my voice in his head when working with Eileen, Jonathan had a finished performance in his head. In fact, I’m his third Grace. The mark of a great director is he’ll never make you feel that you have to achieve a result that another actress has arrived at.

TM: How has he helped you to handle the demands of the piece?

CJ: I think it’s sort of common knowledge that you want to move it along, but it’s also not one of those things where you’re worried about the audience getting ahead of you — because they really can’t. In a monologue, particularly if it’s not going well that night, you have a tendency to rush or, as Jonathan says “to scamper.” And when you scamper, you can’t let the audience in.

TM: Had you ever seen the play before?

CJ: I actually got to see Lizbeth MacKay do it in San Diego — but, at that time, it never occurred to me that I’d ever get to do it or would want to do it, because I was cowed that she learned all those Welsh town names Grace has to recite.

TM: Do you see a similarity between Grace and Josie Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten?

CJ: Yes, they share a dedication to their men. Josie is dedicated to her father in a brutal relationship, as Grace is dedicated to Frank. And they’re both women surrounded by alcoholism, women who have become enablers.

TM: Grace gives up a promising a career as a lawyer to travel with Frank. Why do you think she makes that choice?

CJ: She probably would have been a very good lawyer, but she didn’t want to do it. She became a lawyer just to please her father, and then she met this younger man. It’s not written in the play that he’s younger, but I like playing with it a little bit, especially since I am a few years older than Ralph. I like the idea of Grace having been seduced by this intense 20-year-old, and this intense 20-year-old having fallen in love with this mature 25-year-old.

TM: Was there any sort of research that you did to play Grace?

CJ: There’s probably something I should have done! I would have loved to have gone and hung out in her part of Northern Ireland, but Mr. Friel made it clear that he did not want a tremendously specific dialect. He feels that this is a universal play, and if you make it too specific it becomes a smaller experience. So as long as I have this vaguely Anglo-Irish accent, that’s okay. I also know enough about Irish politics to have a basic understanding of what it must have been like to grow up Anglo-Irish with a very severe father.

TM: You are offstage for the entire second act. Is that going to be weird for you?

CJ: I’ve been lucky to play nice, big, fat, juicy parts for a long time, so I’ve never had a second act off — ever. The only time I was offstage a lot in a show was in Desdemona, this play by Paula Vogel with Fran Brill and J. Smith- Cameron, where I had a 30-minute cameo. This time, I am going to sit in my dressing room and read The New York Times every day, and get to the backlog of Joan Didion books I’d been meaning to read.

TM: You’re only rehearsing with Ralph for a few days before the first preview. Have you two talked a lot about the play?

CJ: He came to see me in Doubt and told me afterwards that, when I walked out onstage as Sister Aloysius, he thought, “Oh, God, no!” But then we went out to dinner, ordered a bottle of red wine, and had a wonderful time. We went to this restaurant ton 48th Street that I went to a lot called La Masseria. The staff always treated me very well, but when I went there with him, suddenly the truffles and the 170-year-old port appeared. You really do feel like you’re with royalty when you’re with Ralph.

TM: Do you expect that it’s going to be hard for you to transition back to playing Sister Aloysius in the fall for the show’s national tour?

CJ: I think it will be agony for the first to or three days, with the voice not sounding right and everything not feeling quite right ..

TM: Have you been to see Eileen in the part?

CJ: I couldn’t see her do it, just as she couldn’t see me do it. I wouldn’t go on pain of death! I have too much respect for her. But we do have dinner together sometimes.

TM: It was reported that John Patrick Shanley would tell you if Father Flynn was guilty when you left the show. Did he?

CJ: No, because I’m doing the play again. Besides, I think I know if the priest did it or not –but I’m not telling you what I decided!