April 11, 2007 Arts » Performing Arts

Pin It
Submit to Reddit
Email
Favorite

Cherry's Jubilee 

A theater legend, without a doubt

By
click to enlarge CRAIG SCHWARTZ - Cherry Jones in Doubt

Page 3 of 5

That's the thing about this play. Everyone thinks that they know, and that they're right.

Right. The key is right in the title — that one should have some sort of empirical uncertainty until all the facts are in about any probe.

That's right. As John said, when he was a boy, people with doubt were considered wise men and women, and now they're considered weak people. We're all expected to know that what we believe is true. Therefore, implicitly, that means what everybody else believes is not. What a wonderful world this would be if people could begin the decision-making process with, "I just don't really know. I'm going to have to listen."

I have read that your first formative theater experience was seeing Colleen Dewhurst, so I can really empathize with you because I saw her with George C. Scott in Desire Under the Elms at Circle in the Square, and I know how powerful an experience like that can be.

Oh, yeah!

I'm just wondering how it is, decades later, to be Cherry Jones and have that kind of stature yourself?

Well, I just don't believe I do. I just can't believe that's the case. There was something about those actors, certainly the stature of those people who were in their primes in the 40s and 50s and 60s in this country in the theater. It was a golden time for American theater! When you think, good Lord, of the work that was produced, and the people who were doing it, I'm proud to be carrying on the tradition as best I can.

But for our parents' generation, who got to see those people live on stage — maybe I over-romanticize it, maybe I get it too much romance and power — but I do think that because they just did it all the time, they must have been just so exceptional at what they did. And I would give anything to have been able to see more of them. I remember when Geraldine Page died — I had never seen Geraldine Page onstage, I had only seen her on film — and from that moment on, I swore that if there were a great performance, I was not going to miss it, that I would do anything to get to see it.

Because it's completely ephemeral, and it's gone.

Yeah, I can't give you my experience of seeing her in Strange Interlude. So it must be part of your ethos, just as much as it was part of Colleen's, that you almost have to defend yourself against feeling any kind of aristocratic regality. Because it's going to prevent you from actually doing the work that you need to do.

Well, I just don't take it seriously, because I don't think it's true. I have been given this mantle as — what is it that Miss Hayes always had? — the "Leading Lady of the American Stage." That's what it is, that's the mantle. You know, I've been very lucky to get to do a lot of work consistently in New York, in the 90s, and in these early aughts. But I know the number of brilliant actresses my age, younger, older, who are out there, who I look up to with great admiration.

And I think of us all as damn lucky that we're getting to keep the theater alive and vigorous in this country. Because it's been an uphill battle for all of our producers to survive the 70s and 80s. When I came to New York, the ABCs, the theater directory in the New York Times, was the height of a couple of inches only. I mean, it was dead! Then two years ago, when Doubt won the Tony, there were 11 straight plays on Broadway, and everyone was writing about what a fluke it was. Now again this year, because a lot of times people have no memory, they're writing about what a fluke it is that, this year, there are going to be 12 straight plays on Broadway! So maybe now it's less of a fluke, and it's starting to be what people, in these very difficult days for our nation — they're hungry to hear ideas again and not just song and dance, and not just reality shows, and not just the lowest common denominator of entertainment. I think people are wanting to have their minds exercised again.

Full text

1 2 3 4 5

More Performing Arts »

Pin It
Submit to Reddit
Email
Favorite

Latest in Performing Arts

Calendar

More »

Search Events

all events
concerts
restaurants
movie times

Most Popular
Most Shared
Most Commented

© 2019 Womack Digital, LLC
Powered by Foundation