Cherry Jones...

I'm not a person who gets starstruck.  Unless that person is Cherry Jones.

The first time I saw her was in Doubt at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2006.  She had already been enjoying a career in theatre, voiceovers, film and tv by that point...but she was new to me and I remember being just riveted by her performance.  The kind of performance where you catch yourself holding your breath.  Gravitas.  That is the perfect word to describe the quality she brings to her work.

I love what Ben Brantley wrote in the last paragraph of his review of Doubt in the New York Times:

"Even as "Doubt" holds your conscious attention as an intelligently measured debate play, it sends off stealth charges that go deeper emotionally. And when Sister Aloysius, in response to Sister James's complaints that she hasn't been sleeping well, says, 'Maybe we're not supposed to sleep well,' the softly spoken words unsettle in ways that full-voiced cries of anguish seldom do."

Yep.

There's something compelling and mysterious about people who embody that characteristic.  It's innate, which makes it even more alluring.

She's starring in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway in a few months, playing Amanda Wingfield...the mother of my friend Celia Keenan-Bolger who is playing Laura.  I just may have a chance to meet her--keep your fingers crossed for me.

Check out this brief clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azo4orufQoE

R